'Dog' is a bounty hunter with a heart

Ozzy Osbourne sings the theme song for "Dog the Bounty Hunter," A&E's newest reality show. It's only fitting, really, because the whole thing relies on what Osbourne has wrought as the model for a new, archetypal TV dad: scary-looking guy, tattooed and leather-bound, but at heart a teddy bear who loves his family and God.

Bail bondsman Duane "Dog" Chapman, star of the series that premieres tonight at 10 with back-to-back episodes, takes the scary/cuddly dichotomy to a new level. He has an affinity for skintight mesh shirts and leather armbands, and looks as if he hasn't shampooed since 1983. He has bad-boy-cum-laude credentials: A former "sergeant-at-arms" of a motorcycle gang, he served time in a Texas prison for murder (he maintains he's innocent), discovered Jesus, and hunted and reclaimed an estranged son (they're business associates now, and they bond through boxing).

Today, Dog has a buxom wife, Beth, who squeezes into leopard prints, bore him three angelic blond children, and helps run his Honolulu bail-bond business. And since he has been featured on Court TV and has done a turn on Hollywood Squares, he's media-savvy enough to know when it's time to be a tough guy -- "Whose life are we gonna ruin today?" -- and when it's time to make a speech about what's Really Important.

Like any cop show, this one relies on a formula. In every episode, Dog, Beth, and a small collection of co-workers will chase down another bail-bondee who skipped a court date. This consists of some minor detective work -- mainly, lying on the phone to the fugitive's girlfriend or mother -- followed by a chase scene, set to action-movie music.

It sounds intense enough, but then, these aren't criminal masterminds; They're low-rent deadbeats accused of drug possession or domestic violence. And this isn't a hotbed of lawlessness; it's Hawaii. Dog doesn't even carry a gun. He charges in with a can of mace. And once the "bad guy" is cuffed and stowed in the back of Dog's SUV, the conversion effort begins. In the first episode, a scrawny jail escapee gets a cigarette, $15, and a cliched tough-love lecture from his captor: "At the end of the criminal rainbow is not a bucket of gold. It's a 6-by-6 cell."

How this can sustain itself through an entire series is an open question, though Dog and Beth are interesting enough, visually and verbally, to be worth watching for a while.

As on "The Osbournes," the best moments stem from their domestic squabbles and tribulations: Beth shouting expletives at Dog from her car window, Dog struggling to get his 3-year-old son to obey a "timeout."

The surrounding material gets a little more tiresome: the constant Hawaiian landscape glamour shots, the way the camera lingers on every "Beware of the Dog" sign, the constant reminders of Dog's virtue. At one point, Dog teaches his 5-year-old, Bonnie Jo, a lesson about returning fish to its natural habitat, then makes the requisite analogies about criminals and life.

Enough, already. But without the treacly stuff, the series probably wouldn't exist. At some point, Dog figured out that his natural habitat was TV, and he's sticking with a formula that works.