There’s almost enough chalk dust in the first episode of “Numb3rs,” the new CBS procedural crime drama that debuts this Sunday night after football, to cover the holes in the show’s concept – but not quite. Aside from the obvious weaknesses of a show that shamelessly mimics the model of “CSI,” “Numb3rs” also suffers from a fatal flaw: it isn’t built to last. There’s nothing in the pilot episode – about yet another serial rapist/killer on the loose in Los Angeles – that makes you want to come back for episode two, let alone season two. “Numb3rs” is, if nothing else, aptly named; it’s by-the-numbers programming by executives trying to fool us into watching a show we’ve seen a million times before.

This time, they’ve dressed it up a little. Unlike CBS’s monster hit “CSI,” which was created by a relative show-business novice named Anthony Zuiker, “Numb3rs” comes from the brothers Scott – Ridley and Tony, both hugely successful filmmakers whose recent hits include “Gladiator” and “Man on Fire.” Whenever movie boys attempt a transition to television, there’s a risk that they’re going to fob off their weakest work on the small screen, in the hopes of generating some fast bucks without working up a sweat. That seems to be the case here. They’ve gathered an ensemble of famous television faces – Rob Morrow of “Northern Exposure,” Judd Hirsch of “Taxi,” David Krumholtz of “The Lyon’s Den” and Peter MacNicol of “Ally McBeal” – and allowed them to run the gamut of emotions from A to B.

The premise of “Numb3rs” is that Don Eppes (played by Mr. Morrow) is yet another overworked FBI agent who doesn’t get enough sleep, and that his brother, Charlie (played by Mr. Krumholtz), is his mathematician brother who doesn’t get enough girls. When it comes time to solve cases, the brothers merge their skills to solve crimes; the main notion behind “Numb3rs” is that all you need to find the bad guys is a good equation. In the pilot, a serial rapist has terrorized Los Angeles and taken the life of his last victim; he can’t be found by conventional means, which leads Charlie to introduce a mathematical formula that somehow calculates a radius in which the rapist resides. Somehow this allows the FBI to narrow their search of Los Angeles to about 20 men in a three-block radius. If you think that’s implausible, wait till you watch Charlie revise his equation to incorporate the rapist’s work address.

Naturally, Charlie has way more sex appeal than he realizes; an Angelina Jolie look-alike, who happens to be a fellow mathematician, sits admiringly at his side as he pursues his impenetrable calculations, and sticks a Post-It note that says “Do Not Erase” on his trusty blackboard. (It seems likely that Mr. Krumholtz closely studied Matt Damon’s chalk-writing scenes from “Good Will Hunting” for inspiration, with a dollop of Russell Crowe in “A Beautiful Mind” for good measure.) Both Messrs. Krumholtz and Morrow have the kind of bland pleasantness that makes you crave craggy actors like Jerry Orbach or even “CSI’s” William Petersen.

Future episodes will probably pursue the personal lives of the brothers, if only because their professional collaboration seems unlikely and, frankly, incomprehensible. How many criminal cases could possibly have a mathematical basis? This is a television concept dreamed up by men who’ve never had the task of coming up with 100 different premises for the same characters before. It’s too bad that great movie directors so rarely make proper use of the serial form; they always tend to develop self-contained pilots that don’t suggest anything interesting beyond the premise. “Numb3rs” doesn’t even do that. The premise itself fails the basic test of a network series – it’s derivative, dull, and almost silly in its oversimplistic use of yet another serial criminal. The Scott brothers should have known better. But in classic Hollywood tradition, the networks have been cowed yet again by a celebrity creator who offers up his table scraps for them to gobble up. When will they ever learn?

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It turns out, much to my embarrassment, that the Food Network had already successfully borrowed the BBC’s “Ready, Steady, Cook!” concept – an idea I strongly advocated last week. For several years, ending in 2002, the Food Network aired a series called “Ready, Set, Cook” that derived directly from the British concept and even briefly had Ainsley Harriott as its host. As sorry as I am to have made such a mistake, however, at least I’m comforted by the fact that I don’t watch as much television as I thought I did. Prior to becoming a television critic, I was even known to venture out of the house occasionally and interact with other human beings.

I offer my apologies to the Food Network, which apparently agrees with me that ordinary cooks do make for entertaining television. I should add that numerous people seem to be highly infatuated with the “Iron Chef America” concept and felt that I was overly harsh in my criticism of it. I will admit that I came down pretty hard on the show based on only a single episode; unlike “Numb3rs,” it’s logical to assume that “Iron Chef America” will evolve over the life of its run, and become a hugely entertaining and successful series. I guess I just don’t feel like eating buffalo.