'Persons Unknown' premieres on NBC

THE SHOW "Persons Unknown"

WHEN | WHERE Monday night at 10 on NBC/4

REASON TO WATCH Viewers who like their mysteries murky and frustrating - hey there, "Lost" fans! - and their characters generic and uninteresting - bye-bye, "Lost" fans! - can cozy up to this series.

WHAT IT'S ABOUT Seven strangers wake up in an empty hotel in an empty town in who-knows-where. Each of them has been abducted from their normal lives.

Janet (Daisy Betts), viewers' entry into the show, gets taken while watching her daughter on a playground. The seeming hero, Joe (Jason Wiles, "Third Watch"), suggests that one of the abducted could actually be the puppet master hiding in plain sight.

And thus begins a state of general, nebulous paranoia as these people who have been thrown together start working to thwart their captors, who watch, presumably, via security cameras that are placed all over the hotel and the small town.

MY SAY The show is somewhat reminiscent of CBS' "Harper's Island" without the someone-dies-every-week hook, which was slasher-movie goofy but more engrossing than just a general state of wariness, which is all "Persons Unknown" offers in its premiere.

BOTTOM LINE Do I want to inflict such a show on myself after getting hooked on other, similar failed series in recent years?

GRADE B-