For 20 years, between stints starring in movies like Under Siege and Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, Steven Seagal has worked as a deputy sheriff in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. The opening credits for Steven Seagal: Lawman note that Seagal has kept this second career in police work out of the limelight ... "until now."

Why step into that light now? Possibly because all Seagal's movies since 2003 have gone straight to DVD, though his role in Robert Rodriguez's upcoming Machete will end that trend. Or perhaps some industrious producers rightly saw it as a reality TV goldmine and dangled a hefty paycheck.

The result is a show that one online commenter called "Dwight Schrute: The Television Series." That's a fair enough description, but I'd say Lawman is more like a glossy version of Cops starring Steven Seagal.

The series essentially flips between two settings. In one, Seagal and his fellow cops ride around in SUVs responding to calls about carjackings, parking lot brawls and unruly bar patrons. The other scenario finds Seagal instructing his comrades in Zen methods for shooting and martial arts.

Two episodes in, it's pretty standard cable reality fare. There's rarely any significant conflict; mostly the officers just take turns stroking Seagal's ego. Lawman isn't egregious, but for a show with so much potential to be wonderfully campy, keenly insightful or downright exciting, it falls rather flat.