Rainn Wilson is back in 'Backstrom'

PASADENA, Calif. — Good cop, bad man.

That good-at-work, bad-at-life dynamic is a fairly common one on TV these days; Hart Hanson has used it, with great success, on his long-running mystery Bones. And as of Jan. 22, he'll be using it again on Backstrom, a new Fox series starring Rainn Wilson as an overweight, under-socialized, incredibly intuitive cop.

Based on a Swedish series of mystery novels, the series has a large ensemble that includes Dennis Haysbert, Kristoffer Polaha and Page Kennedy. But Wilson is the cornerstone, moving from supporting actor in The Office to the leading role here.

Actually, Wilson didn't want to do another series so soon after The Office — so when his agents sent him the Backstrom script, he says, "I almost fired him on the spot." Then he read it and was hooked, in part, he says, because there aren't a lot of interesting parts out there "for weird-looking, 48-year-old pasty-white dudes. It was really exciting to read, and I knew I wanted to do it."

The show sums up its main character as "arrogant but brilliant," with a strong dose of "difficult." But, says Wilson, the arrogance and the issues are what drew him to the character. "It's human, it's frail, it's interesting."

It's also a bit of a switch, says Hanson, from the character Leif GW Persson created in the books. "In the books, Backstrom has no redeeming values. He's not even a very good detective. He just takes credit for what other people do. Much like a show-runner. The change we made for network TV was to make him very good at his job and make him empathetic."

The books also go inside Backstrom's head, allowing the character to keep his worst racist, sexist and homophobic thoughts to himself — thoughts the show has him express out loud. That could turn an audience off, says Hanson, which is where Wilson comes in.

"We're counting a lot on Rainn's natural likability. The way he says them is kind of dramatic in a way, as if he's doing it for effect."

"People are going to have to embrace who they are in order to watch this and say 'You know what? This is damn interesting,' says Haysbert. "And it is."