Law and Order and Love Interests

Thirty years ago this month, “The Waltons” made its network debut, a series of homespun values that would connect with audiences in a big way and make a small-screen star out of Richard “John Boy” Thomas.

The series had a lengthy run, but afterward, Thomas’ efforts to find an equally durable and successful franchise proved difficult. After all these years, he’s back in a diverting drama premiering on the Pax network, “Just Cause.” The show gets underway Sunday at 9 p.m. in a two-hour special, with hourlong episodes to follow each week, also on Sundays at 9.

Thomas plays Hamilton Whitney III, a thrice-married, Ivy League-schooled lawyer who is thrown together with attractive ex-con Alex DeMonaco (Elizabeth Lackey), whose own legal training came via the Internet between cell searches and lockdowns.

DeMonaco, who we are told hails from Boyle Heights, was an innocent dupe, of course. Her incarceration for an insurance scam was actually the doing of her evil-lawyer hubby, who vanished with their young daughter as police closed in, leaving her holding the proverbial bag. Upon her release from prison after five long years, she’s ready to nail the jerk, reclaim her daughter and just maybe get something going with Whitney.

The show uses flashes of humor as it plays the odd-couple dynamics for all they’re worth. Flirty attorney Patrick Heller (Shaun Benson) and flinty probation officer C.J. Leon (Roger Cross) provide some effective shadings as DeMonaco tries to find a niche in Whitney’s San Francisco law firm.

Sunday’s debut episode threatens at times to get bogged down in the legal minutiae of a wrongful-termination subplot, but Lackey’s sunny appeal and Thomas’ growing interest in her keep things interesting.