Profiler - Season One

Profiler borrowed heavily from The Silence of the Lambs and The X-Files while cribbing its title sequence from Seven, but the series established its own dark identity through slick production values and gruesomely plausible plots. The miscasting of Walker reportedly troubled NBC executives despite her growing fan base, but Profiler earned respectable ratings, building its popularity on a compelling escalation of tension and terror. Walker's DVD commentary on the pilot episode repeats the official reason for her departure after two seasons (she'd grown weary of the show's humorless tone), while Davi's is refreshingly frank, citing on-set squabbles and network mismanagement as reasons for first-season hardship. Still, he's quite correct in stating that later, more successful shows (C.S.I., Without a Trace, and others) would not have existed without Profiler's stylishly trendsetting example. (Note: episode #4, "I'll Be Watching You," was omitted from this set due to prohibitively expensive music rights for the Police hit "Every Breath You Take," which featured prominently in that episode's plot.) --Jeff Shannon