The FBI hires practically anyone, from Mandy Patinkin in Criminal Minds and Anthony LaPaglia in Without a Trace to Rob Morrow in Numb3rs and David Boreanaz in Bones. And that’s just the returning series. To this excess of gumshoes add Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt as FBI hostage negotiators who, against the rules, go home with each other instead of alone. Even if every hour of Standoff doesn’t live up to the air-traffic-controller-gone-bananas episode that aired on September 12, at least once a week all of us will get to go home with the spectacular DeWitt.

Fox, Tuesdays, 9 P.M.

Related:

• Archive: “Television”
• Articles by John Leonard
• Table of Contents: Oct 2, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!