FX rebounds with The Riches

Tonight's premiere of The Riches on FX couldn't arrive any sooner. The "edgy" cable network still has its most recent misfire on the air, and they haven't launched a successful hour since Rescue Me which is about to enter its fourth season. With The Shield's latest season still nearly a month away from launch there's a serious lack of quality at the network right now. I'm not sure The Riches has what it takes to become a ratings juggernaut but at least the pilot is good, and suggests the start of something worth paying attention to.

The show is a strange creation, even for a boundary-pushing network like FX. Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver star as the heads of a family who live out of their camper, roaming from town to town stealing for a living. It's a gypsy lifestyle and from what we learn in the pilot it's also how Driver's character was raised. But when the family gets an opportunity for a fresh start they take it.

The closest comparison for The Riches on TV today is HBO's Big Love, which also looks at an American family with circumstances so unique they might as well be from another planet and their awkward relationship with society at large. The basic set-up of a family assuming new identities recalls The CW's instant flop Runaway, while Izzard and Driver appear primed to play out the kind of complicated relationship full of moral ambiguities that Ray Liotta and Virginia Madsen were robbed of when CBS rudely yanked fall's promising crime drama Smith. Like the latter two shows The Riches wouldn't have a prayer on network TV, but like Big Love it has the opportunity to speak to an appreciative niche audience while making the most of the creative freedom cable provides.

There's plenty of naughty language, some violence and a little sex in the show's pilot but unlike some other FX shows The Riches doesn't seem eager to abuse its freedoms and "push the envelope" just for shock value. The characters are more than enough to grab viewers' attention.

The Riches will air Mondays at 10 on FX with repeats throughout the week and the pilot is available to watch anytime this week on Yahoo! TV.