"Donnellys” is not in the business of creating characters worth rooting for but rather in exploring humanity's most sinister side. It's a dark, risky yet mostly successful experiment in HBO-style drama.

And it will be lucky to make it through the end of March.

“Donnellys,” premiering tonight at 10, isn’t original in concept. Set in New York, it tells the tale of four twenty-something Irish-American brothers who are individually and collectively teetering on the edge of criminality.

Co-creator Paul Haggis, the director of last year’s Oscar-winning “Crash,” clearly intends to explore just how deep the bonds of brotherhood and loyalty will go. Stylistically moody, with mournful music and a pale, bluish look, it evokes a constant sense of foreboding. One doubts there’s any way to prevent these brothers’ inexorable creep toward a gloomy end.

“Donnellys” plumbs the depths of human frailty and cruelty for those willing to go spelunking. It's caustic and yet vibrant. But for many, it may just all be too much. With even the most likable characters capable of horrific acts, embracing any of them may be too much to ask on a weekly basis. It hurts that early episodes overdose on twisty plot convolutions and introduce too many characters for any reasonable person to keep track of.

Yet those same criticisms were initially aimed at “The Sopranos” as well, and it went on to become one of the best television dramas of the last decade.

The issue for “Donnellys” is whether it will be given the same opportunity. NBC is not HBO, and there is only one James Gandolfini.

Tommy Donnelly (Jonathan Tucker, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”) may not quite be Tony Soprano yet but he’s headed that way.

The second of the four brothers, he’s also the smartest and the most grounded. He’s an aspiring artist, desperate to get out of the brutish world of his youth.

That's made almost impossible by his older brother, Jimmy (Thomas Guiry, “Mystic River”), an addict with a bum leg and a hot temper.

The third brother, Kevin (Billy Lush, “Huff”), has a gambling problem but an unwavering sense of brotherly devotion. Youngest brother Sean (Michael Stahl-David, “Uncle Nino”) is the lothario of the family. And then there’s Jenny (Olivia Wilde, "The O.C."), Tommy’s childhood love, who despite her marriage to another man still has feelings for him.

Tommy Donnelly is almost Shakespearean in the range of character. Like the "Godfather's" Michael Corleone, he’s a young man with limitless potential but seemingly destined to be drawn back to the neighborhood and the family. Tucker proves himself up to the challenge, his wiry frame and haunted eyes conveying both vulnerability and determination.

Guiry as Jimmy does the druggie hothead thing well. He’s Sonny to Tucker’s Michael, and the churning cauldron of their familial love and competitiveness is well-played by both. Neither Lush nor Stahl-David has much to do yet.

Wilde, while gorgeous, is so far little more than an ornament. And while there are just too many characters thrown at the screen early on, the presence of superb supporting actor Kirk Acevedo (“Oz”) as the head of the Italian mob is heartening.

But can a broadcast television series about such seemingly irredeemable characters find an audience? Great short-lived, nasty-souled series like “EZ Streets” (also from Haggis) and “Profit” couldn’t. And frankly, without Haggis’ name attached, it’s unlikely that such brooding material would have been greenlit in the first place.

It’s hard to imagine that “The Black Donnellys” will survive for long, but with its violent, dystopian worldview and troubled, tortured characters, it deserves a shot.