We can't go on together with "Criminal Minds" - Elvis Presley, sort of

Truth be told, I've never been much of a fan of "Criminal Minds." It's too lurid, too misogynistic, too, well, too. But tonight's episode had me fairly well hooked, for a while, at least.

The fourth-season opener begins where the season-three cliffhanger left off - with Hotchner (Thomas Gibson) and that British agent Kate that he seemed kind of fond of getting the hell blown out of them by a terrorist blast in New York. All sorts of attendant chaos rains down as the team (and the word "team" is used in this show as if it's some sort of holy relic) tries to locate those behind the bombing.

(The cast of "Criminal Minds" debates whether Paget Brewster looks better with bangs or without.)

Hotch and Kate are left dangling in the wind because protocol suggests that since the true target is apparently the wave of first responders, they must hold back and not really do anything. So Kate's guts and bare feet (she was literally blown out of her shoes) are exposed to the world, since she's but a bit player who's not even mentioned on imdb.com, while Hotch, who's a series regular, just has a little blood trickling out of his ear, even though he was just as close to the blast.

Intrepid Agent Derek Morgan (Shemar Moore, who gives this episode its oomph and more) has to bully his way past cops who have cordoned off the block and basically left Kate to die. An ambulance finally breaches the barricade, which I initially wrote off to the sort of sloppy plotting the show usually trucks in but actually turns out to be something of a plot point.

But, still, the episode boasts a lot of propulsive urgency and an impressive body count and is pretty exciting despite gaping holes in both security perimeters and plot logic. Putative stars Joe Mantegna and Paget Brewster are given next to nothing to do while their co-stars are saving Manhattan - Brewster's big scene involves Mets tickets - but as Hollywood sage Donald Rumsfeld once said, you go in with the storyline you have, not the storyline you want.

- "Criminal Minds:" 9 tonight; CBS (Channel 2).