Nicholas Bishop stars in "Past Life"

Network-wide trends are nothing new. Stations often jump onto a genre, quickly coming up with their own variations of pre-existing series.

Occasionally these shows register a marginal success, and often they never make it to air, but sometimes they have the promise to be something phenomenal.

Cue "Past Life," airing Thursdays on Fox, a new entry into the popular world of paranormal-investigation dramas that has the potential to be as good or even better than the rest.

Inspired by the novel "The Reincarnationist," written by M.J. Rose, "Past Life" follows two paranormal detectives who work to solve mysteries brought to light by people dealing with past-life regression -- suppressed memories from a previous existence.

With a bevy of other cryptic mystery shows pulling big numbers (think "Fringe", "Heroes", "Lost" and "Ghost Whisperer"), it seems like a new paranormal series would have trouble standing up to the stiff competition. But "Past Life" promises something different in that it does not deal with ghosts, aliens, vampires, witches or mythical creatures. It deals with humans experiencing the memories of other humans in a fresh new twist.

The series stars Kelli Giddish (previously of "All My Children" and "Without a Trace") as Dr. Kate McGinn, an atypical psychologist who dealt with her own regression in her 20s, leading to her belief in reincarnation and the possibility of various levels of human consciousness. While her line of work leads to many raised eyebrows, she is unafraid of their doubt and continues to try to unravel the intricate mysteries of the mind.

Her partner, however, couldn't be more different. A former NYPD homicide detective, Price Whatley (played by Nicholas Bishop) is a down-to-earth, practical cop. But that doesn't leave him without depth -- Whatley is constantly fighting lasting guilt over the accidental death of his wife. Despite his better judgment, he often finds himself going along with his partner's unusual detective style and off-the-cuff ways.

Their kind of coworker dysfunction is a tried and true equation in many investigative shows. Fox's most notable paranormal series, the 1993 smash hit "The X-Files," offered the same kind of tension between its main characters, Fox Mulder (played by David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). The same again in "Bones," a current Fox hit, in which Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) enjoy their own measure of amicable conflict. The partnering of two opposite types of personalities is a surefire way to get viewers to sympathize with at least one side of the equation.

Accompanying them on their journeys to solve various paranormal mysteries is the taciturn Dr. Malachi Talmadge, played by Richard Schiff (previously seen on "Roswell," "Ally McBeal" and "NYPD Blue"). Talmadge is a legend in the world of cognitive research, McGinn's mentor and the namesake of the centre for which she works.

Also tagging along for the journey is Dr. Rishi Karna (Ravi Patel), a rambunctious young doctor from Calcutta who enjoys Cuban jazz, American television and driving his colleagues insane.

Though Fox has only purchased seven episodes of the show thus far, it isn't exactly unusual for a mid-season upstart like "Past Life" to catch on late.

Fan favorites such as "The Simpsons," "Lie to Me," "Grey's Anatomy," "Malcolm in the Middle" and "3rd Rock From the Sun" all began in the mid-season slump and were not expected to bring high numbers.

Despite that, "The Simpsons" has won 25 prime-time Emmy awards and has a star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, "Grey's Anatomy" has ranked in the top 10 ratings slots for all of its seasons except the fifth, in which it placed 12th, and "3rd Rock" won approximately 30 awards in its five-year run. Some might say that "Past Life" might even have an advantage over the masses of fall-season newbies.

The show premiered last week with a two-hour pilot episode, titled "Gone Daddy Gone." It showed the duo's struggle to help Noah, a teenage boy, played by guest star Cayden Boyd, who is suffering from incidents of past-life regression.

In these unexplainable occurrences, he remembers a kidnapping and murder from one of his previous lives. Together, the team tries to discover who Noah was and who killed him the last time around, 14 years ago.