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In recent years, American television has done a horrific job of remaking classic television series and films.

This season alone, networks managed to make hash out of the creepy Danish miniseries Riget, remade badly as Kingdom Hospital, and Britain's very funny Coupling, which died a well-deserved early death on NBC.

As a result, why should expectations be high for USA's remake of Touching Evil (9 p.m. Friday, USA), a wonderful 1997 British miniseries that crossed the fantasy of The X-Files with the grit of NYPD Blue?

But here's a surprise: The American version makes a strong debut, flashing a lot of promise.

Except for transplanting the show to the States and an FBI unit specializing in serial crimes, the premise remains intact. Detective David Creegan (Jeffrey Donovan) survives a near-fatal gunshot wound to the head - he was actually declared dead - but the experience alters his mind to the point he is declared clinically insane. But it has also left him with startling clarity into the criminal mind and a total lack of fear.

That makes Creegan volatile but also rather valuable to the FBI unit, which is tracking down a serial child kidnapper in the opening episode. Paired with a more grounded agent, Susan Branca (Vera Farmiga), Creegan goes after the kidnapper with vengeance even as he battles mood swings and shifting emotions.

In a sense, Creegan and Branca are a latter-day Dana Scully and Fox Mulder, two mismatched investigators who share little in common except a devotion to justice.

Sunday night returns: The Sopranos didn't break records in its return to HBO, but fans seem pretty happy to have the show back.

The series, which stars James Gandolfini as a New Jersey mobster, began its fifth season before about 12.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen figures. That's about 2 million more people than watched the series finale of Sex and the City on HBO last month.

The show stacks up well against its network competition. Only NBC's Law & Order: Criminal Intent, with close to 15 million viewers, attracted a bigger audience than The Sopranos at 9 p.m. CBS' movie The Survivors Club, came closest, with about 9.3 million viewers for the hour.

HBO reaches fewer than 40 million subscribers, while the networks broadcast to nearly all the 108 million-plus homes.

'West Wing': Five-time Oscar nominee Glenn Close will don a judge's robes for a guest appearance on The West Wing later this month.

Close will play a potential Supreme Court nominee in the episode, scheduled for March 24. The role will be a relatively rare TV appearance for Close, whose last work on a series was a voice cameo on The Simpsons earlier this season and a Will & Grace guest appearance in May 2002.

In the episode, Close will play a federal judge whom President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) considers appointing to the high court after one of the sitting justices unexpectedly dies. Her left-of-center politics, however, make her a tough sell to replace the dead justice, a staunch conservative.