CBS' new summer series "Raven" (8p.m., Ch. 5) is a muddled action show full of Japanese gangsters and ninja warriors.
It's also the most violent show to air on network TV in years.In addition to plenty of martial arts-type fights, there are shootings, stabbings and burnings. There's not a whole lot of blood (as mandated by what's left of network standards) while the body count rises, but there's a nauseating amount of just plain violence.
Even without this sort of action, there's not a lot to recommend "The Raven." Jeffrey Meek stars as Jonathan Raven, a martial arts expert hunting for his missing half-Japanese son while being hunted by Japanese ninjas. He's aided by a grizzled drunk of a private eye, played by TV veteran Lee Majors.
(Seeing Majors is a shock. The star of "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "Fall Guy" looks old, overweight and, with a horrible affected accent, sounds like an idiot.)
Anyway, "Raven" is full of bizarre images and moody lighting (a la "Miami Vice"), but the show is all style and no substance. Basically, "Raven" is just another action show, shrouded in murky mysticism and roiling with barbarous - and sometimes gratuitous - violence, violence, violence.