TV Talk: Patrick Dempsey murders his way through Alzheimer’s in ‘Memory of a Killer’

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.

Back in the early 2000s, antiheroes on TV were all the rage thanks to “The Shield,” “The Sopranos,” “Damages” and a slew of other series that centered on characters who would have been each show’s villain in the past.

Of course, given the state of the world these days, some TV has moved away from that (see: Fox’s “Best Medicine”) and even the creator of antihero-led “Breaking Bad” has argued for more good guys in TV series.

But here comes Fox, still thinking it’s 2006 and that viewers want to see “Grey’s Anatomy” veteran Patrick “McDreamy” Dempsey as a double life-leading, creative contract killer who uses parts of a paper towel dispenser to kill his target before returning home to spend time with his pregnant daughter.

An early nominee for feel-bad series of the year, “Memory of a Killer” (approximately 10 p.m. Jan. 25 before moving to its new time slot with a new episode at 9 p.m. Jan. 26, WPGH) is based on the Belgian novel “De Zaak Alzheimer” and its 2003 film adaptation. You don’t have to speak Dutch to understand the last word of that movie’s title. Early episodes of “Memory” only hint at Angelo Doyle’s illness and how it will likely mess with his life and vocation.

The show’s whole concept is similar to the superior Michael Keaton-directed/starring film “Knox Goes Away.”

When Dempsey’s Angelo is not murdering people at the behest of boss/chef Dutch (Michael Imperiolli, “The Sopranos”), Doyle pretends to be a photocopy machine salesman. He also visits his older brother, who’s confined to a memory care facility (guess it runs in the family). By episode two, an FBI agent (Gina Torres, “Suits”) seems to be onto Doyle’s ruse.

There’s a running story about the murder of Doyle’s wife a few years earlier that will surely be revealed to have something to do with Doyle’s line of work.

Created by Ed Whitmore (“Manhunt”) and Tracey Malone (“Born to Kill”), “Memory of a Killer” is another Fox show that conjures memories of a time when Fox was capable of making great scripted series (“Empire” in its first season, “Glee,” “House”), something the network no longer seems capable of doing.