Cliff clashes even more with the firm’s other managing partner, Hart Sterling (Clancy Brown), who believes in good causes and pro bono cases, and has returned to work after three years off nursing his sick wife.  Together the partners make life as uncomfortable as possible for their underlings, who include a young idealist, Dylan (Matt Long, “Jack and Bobby”); a manic milquetoast, Addy (Tina Majorino); a handsome Lothario, Liam (Ben Lawson); and a privileged, ambitious blonde, Beth (Leah Pipes), who says in her job interview that she doesn’t have a mountain of school loans to pay off because her father endowed a chair at Stanford. “Technically,” she purrs, “they owe us.”  They bond quickly under the strain of work, difficult ethical choices and hunger. When a partners’ meeting breaks up, the new hires scramble to grab pastries from the coffee cart. But their choices aren’t really very difficult, and their personalities are thinly sketched.  And that is surprising nowadays. Television has grown more sophisticated in the age of cable, not less, and more than other genres, legal dramas profit in bad times.  Medical shows like “House” and even “Grey’s Anatomy” have to struggle to find diseases that pass muster with the average viewer. In the age of Bernard Madoff, Octomoms and the Brooke Astor estate, newspapers and television news are crammed with juicy plotlines; tabloid headlines have kept “Law & Order” on the air for 20 years.  Nothing surprising happens on “The Deep End.” The liaisons are not very dangerous and the cases are so simplistic they make “Law & Order” seem like “Crime & Punishment.”  And that is almost unprecedented.  ABC, Thursdays at 8, Eastern and Pacific times; 7, Central time. David Hemingson and Jan Nash, executive producers. Produced by 20th Century Fox Television.  WITH: Matt Long (Dylan Hewitt), Billy Zane (Cliff Huddle), Clancy Brown (Hart Sterling), Norbert Leo Butz (Rowdy Kaiser), Leah Pipes (Beth Branford), Tina Majorino (Addy Fisher), Ben Lawson (Liam Priory), Nicole Ari Parker (Susan Oppenheim) and Mehcad Brooks (Malcolm Bennet).  A version of this review appears in print on January 21, 2010, on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Those Daring Young Lawyers In Gray Flannel. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
“The Deep End” is a network series about sex and drive, and surprisingly, it’s neither sexy nor very ambitious.