Mary Shannon (Mary McCormack), the heroine of “In Plain Sight,” a new series on USA making its debut at 10 p.m. Sunday, is a U.S. Marshal in the most secretive and dangerous branch of the federal witness protection program. She’s also one tough broad. She has a handsome, bronzed lover, Raphael (Cristián de la Fuente), but he’s the one who yearns for emotional connection, while she’s all wham-bam-thank-you-man, zipping up her jeans and donning her leather jacket and shades without bothering to hang around for a cozy cuddle and chat.

“How can someone who burns so hot be so cold?” asks the plaintive Raphael. He looks as if he’s hoping for breakfast on a tray. She looks like an aviator heading out the door. “I don’t know. It’s a great question. Give me a call if you figure it out,” she replies.

This kind of gender reversal has become a complete cliché by this point — see Sarah Shahi’s female detective in NBC’s “Life” for one of many examples — and also extends to Mary’s relationship with her fellow marshal (Frederick Weller), who mostly alternates between being a smart aleck and a jerk. “Do I get to play bad cop?” he asks at one point. “Like you could,” she sneers.

Native American men, plentiful since the series is set in Albuquerque, N.M., fare no better. A corrupt real estate developer named Tall Trees is soon cut down to size, while Mary hurls a bar of soap with a velocity that wouldn’t shame a bullet at the bared member of another hapless Indian. Though it could be argued that he has just exposed himself to her, it could also be argued that she is standing in the men’s restroom. As for her boss, Stan (Paul Ben-Victor), he’s reminiscent of Kyra Sedgwick’s meek supervisor in “The Closer,” only so clueless Mary will barely talk to him on the phone.

Women don’t rate terribly highly, either, particularly those in Mary’s family. (The 76-minute pilot episode takes place on her birthday, a date for which she expresses zero sentimentality.) Her mother, aptly named Jinx (Lesley Ann Warren), has the emotional maturity of a spoiled teenager. Ditto her cokehead sister, Brandi (Nichole Hiltz), who thinks the band Los Lobos is an Indian tribe and whom Mary has to treat as if she were a tiresome daughter rather than a sibling.

All this may sound enticing, but I’m not sure it is. “In Plain Sight” takes a lot of pointers from “Burn Notice,” the terrific series (also on USA, and returning July 10) about a fired CIA agent, but has considerably less charm. It replicates that show’s use of the voice-over, an old-fashioned but perennially useful device which, when delivered by the correct pair of vocal cords, can add color, personality, and novelistic insight. In “Burn Notice,” it was used brilliantly to feed the audience an endless series of informational nuggets about the minutiae of spycraft. Here, its function is exactly the same, except that witness protection takes the place of spying.

“Since 1970, the Federal Witness Protection Program has relocated thousands of witnesses to neighborhoods all across the country, some criminal, some not,” Mary tells us as the opening credits roll. “Every one of these individuals shares a unique attribute distinguishing them from the rest of the population. And that is, somebody wants them dead.”

Not bad as narrative kickoffs go, but Ms. McCormack’s voice is strangely colorless and bland. This is the moment when she needs to grab the viewer by the ear as well as by the eye (her mane of blond hair and skimpy tank tops should take care of that), but the ear starts tuning out before she reaches the end of the third sentence.

Perhaps that’s because Mary sounds bored and emotionally drained, as if Albuquerque’s desert heat has sapped her of most of the genuine feeling she possesses. To his credit, the series’ creator and writer, David Maples, has avoided making his heroine overly lovable or even likable, a surprise given that USA is prone to laying on the treacle with a trowel, as in the case of the increasingly saccharine “Monk.” But it’s a risk. Mary isn’t someone you’d want to spend a lot of time with.

There are some good details, however. Mary keeps a “To Do” list in her car, which she returns to with dogged fealty. Her handwriting, shown repeatedly in close-up, is sharp, angular, and marked by pronounced downward strokes. It is also devoid of roundness or warm, girlish loops. (Note to graphologists: Knock yourselves out.) Yet much of her job consists of playing den mother to a motley group of federally protected witnesses, ranging from scuzzy hit men to innocent informants who have had to leave their previous lives behind, unable even to take a photograph with them. A teenage Ukrainian girl who has just arrived in Albuquerque has been promised breast implants as part of her reward for turning state witness. Demonstrating her gentler side, Mary duly shows up at the girl’s new apartment with a bag of groceries and a copy of Playboy to impress upon her just how giving American plastic surgeons can be.

The program’s basic format is that of the police procedural, and things get off to a quick start with a fat gangster’s body flying out a window and landing on the trunk of a car belonging to one of Mary’s clients. There are also two bodies shot up and mutilated in a field, and much expositional back-and-forth that gets a bit confusing while you’re still trying to sort out who’s who.

Not that it matters much. Ultimately, “In Plain Sight” is one of those series that hangs on the lead character, and this one is about a woman who helps people hide their identities while spending much of her time covering up her emotions. How interesting the show turns out to be will probably depend on whether there’s anything of real interest in the emotions in question.

bbernhard@nysun.com