Who says the sun always shines in Los Angeles? In “The Cleaner,” a new series on A&E beginning Tuesday at 10 p.m., the streets are wet, the neighborhoods downscale, and the prevailing atmosphere more reminiscent of the cold junkie dawns of a William Burroughs novel than the glossy, bright-eyed metropolis usually depicted in television shows set in Los Angeles not named “The Shield.”

The subject matter of “The Cleaner” is grim: addiction. Not just to drugs or alcohol, but to sex, gambling, and anything else damaging enough to lead an addict’s friends or family to call on the services of an “extreme interventionist,” William Banks (Benjamin Bratt), to turn the situation around. Once a drug addict himself, Banks turned his own life around by finding God and, having located the Big Fella, immediately vowed to overcome his compulsions by helping other people to conquer theirs. This might seem a bit presumptuous — imagine if someone said, “I am going to quit drinking by forcing other people to quit drinking” — but remember, he only comes when he’s called, and he’s not easy to find. He works in a car shop and doesn’t advertise. It’s all word-of-mouth, you see, and in a grungy kind of way (in his role as the interventionist, Mr. Bratt sports a street look, and a Che Guevara beard), just a touch exclusive.

Aside from smoking the occasional cigarette, which he usually does on the sly, sometimes in the company of his wife, Melissa (Amy Price-Francis, memorable for her bouts with David Duchovny in “Californication,” but so far wasted here), William’s sole remaining vice is talking to God. Not “praying,” mind you — he claims not to be religious — just “talking.” However you characterize the habit, it’s hokey and annoying and (based on the opening episode, at least) a definite drawback as far as this projected 13-part series is concerned. The viewer wants William to shut up, and I imagine God does, too. Certainly his children, Ben (Brett DelBuono) and Lula (Liliana Mumy), don’t seem very happy about it.

William’s interventionist operation is run along the lines of a very small police squad. Essentially, it consists of Akani (Grace Park of “Battlestar Galactica”), a svelte and cheekily sexy Asian who behaves as if she wants to be the next James Bond girl, and Arnie (Esteban Powell), a scruffy-haired, nervous-breakdown-in-waiting who, despite the miniscule size of the team, is constantly threatened with being thrown off it. (After he’s screwed up yet again, he pleads with his boss: “C’mon, William, c’mon man, I’ve never been good at anything in my entire life. You know this. It took me eight years just to decide to drop out of college, and that was community college, alright? But this job — it gives me something.” As writing goes, that’s pretty good.) There’s also Darnell (Kevin Michael Richardson, “Knights of Prosperity”), a jovial, plus-size car salesman whose brother was saved by William and would like to join his team, and Gil Bellows as “Mick,” in a touching role as a recovering addict trying to put his life back together and save his marriage, only for disaster to strike.

There are a lot of things about “The Cleaner” that are well done, beginning with its able depiction of how hard drugs can completely consume and master a personality until its victim will do just about anything, criminal or otherwise, to get the next fix. This is not exactly news, but neither is it irrelevant or unworthy of being dramatized. The pilot episode’s portrayal of Zach (James Immekus), a high school athlete whose life now revolves around his crystal meth habit to the exclusion of everything else, does a pretty convincing job of showing how morals, scruples, familial bonds, law-abidingness, you name it, get drop-kicked out the window when the demon of craving kicks in, not to mention how quickly a middle-class kid can find himself sliding down into the dregs of society despite all the concerned adults around him.

More subtly, the program also demonstrates how the problem of dealing with an addict is that he is subject to a force larger than himself — which explains, no doubt, why so many recovering ones do end up talking to a “Higher Power,” if only out of sheer desperation. When Zach’s baby sister gives him a few dollars (“That’s all I have,” she says), the scene borders on the sentimental but is touching nonetheless. Even a child can discern that Zach is no longer himself. “I miss you,” she says simply.

If this all sounds overly cheerless, there’s always Grace Park around to keep things light, lewd, and sexually charged as Akani, who looks as if she’d be as comfortable swapping jokes with the girls on “Sex and the City” as she does chasing down addicts in the meaner streets of L.A. Mr. Bratt, best known to television audiences for his role as Detective Rey Curtis on “Law & Order” during the 1990s, is well suited to his role here, which is based on the real-life story of Warren Boyd, an ex-addict turned drug counselor who serves as a co-executive producer on the show.

Ultimately, what “The Cleaner” does most powerfully is dramatize the ways in which someone can remain haunted by his addiction long after he has theoretically conquered it. Despite the extreme measures William takes to save people — the first intervention we witness is like a carefully planned criminal heist — the relapse rate is high and the prospects for permanent recovery low-to-middling. The fact that this includes William’s closest friend, and conceivably even William himself, is what gives this pilot episode its tension, and a shot at keeping viewers interested as the series develops.

Given the ever-increasing number of addictive and self-destructive behaviors contemporary society creates, there should be no shortage of material for future episodes.

bbernhard@nysun.com