We humans are a restless lot. At least, we like to think we are. We’ll move from one continent to another in search of a different life, only to make our new neighborhood look like the one we left behind. We rant and rave for political change, but when it’s staring us squarely in the face, we run screaming in the other direction. We love to talk about the new cuisine of the moment, and we never tell our friends that in our private moments, we’re scarfing down pizzas and beer. Collectively, we lead a double life. Truth is, for all our posturings about our cutting edge lives, we’re no different than our parents, who were no different from their parents, and on and on. Change scares the bejeezus out of us—it forces us to peer into the unknown. It’s not that we mind the new—we just want it to look familiar.

NCIS: Los Angeles looks very familiar, as well it should. It is, after all, a spin-off of NCIS, whichwas itself a spin-off of the now defunct JAG. That’s not really what makes this new series seems so familiar, though. Outside of the fact that NCIS is the lead-in for NCIS: Los Angeles, the two shows have very little in common. Sure, there’s the obligatory killing of a naval person in the beginning of the program to set up the investigation, but that’s about all that links NCIS: LA to its older sibling. Indeed, it bares little resemblance to the backdoor pilot that aired at the conclusion of NCIS last season.

What sets NCIS: LA apart from the original NCIS is that it’s self- consciously fuel injected, geared for a younger ratings demographic. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it means it favors action sequences over character development. The pilot introduces us to lead characters G. Callen (Chris O'Donnell), an undercover agent so mysterious even he doesn’t know the details of his past (or what “G” stands for) and his partner in peril, Sam Hanna (LL Cool J), an ex-Navy SEAL who’s an expert in all kinds of spy stuff, most of which involves driving black Camaros and shooting everything that moves. Linda Hunt plays their diminutive boss, “Hetty” Lange, a sort of cross between James Bond’s Q and a fussy mother figure for the team, the rest of which are cookie cutter action show back-up characters—the psychologist, the trivia nerd, the impossibly attractive female agents, and so on—who serve mainly to provide exposition and window dressing between the action scenes of the stalwart Callen and Hanna.

We’ve seen it all before, and we fall for it every time—at least for a short while. Admittedly, the pilot for NCIS: LA had to introduce the concept of the Office of Special Projects wing of NCIS, as well as the various regulars, as well as present a plot, however thin it might be. Where it stumbled was in its execution of the story. Everything happened with the pace of a videogame, logic be damned. In that regard, it harkens back to every buddy cop show of the sixties and seventies—right down to snappy repartee and cool cars.

NCIS: LA has potential. But for it to have any hope of long-term success, it’s going to have to more than rely on shoot-outs to carry the story. We may long for familiarity, but we outgrew Starsky and Hutch and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. a long time ago.

You can see the pilot episode at CBS.com. New episodes air Tuesday nights at 9P EST.