'Person of Interest,' 'Unforgettable' premiere this week

Two of CBS’s new fall shows took me by surprise.

I expected to love “Person of Interest,” a high-concept series about a billionaire and a washed-up former CIA agent trying to stop crimes before they happen, and be annoyed by “Unforgettable,” a procedural about a former cop who has a rare condition that makes her incapable of forgetting anything.

But the exact opposite happened. While I appreciate CBS — the home of the predictable procedural — making an effort to go high concept, the “Person of Interest” pilot just didn’t flow the way it should have.

The story goes like this: After 9/11, a billionaire named Finch (Michael Emerson, “Lost”) created an advanced system that uses surveillance cameras and other information, such as social security numbers, to identify people about to be involved in violent crimes.

He doesn’t know if those people will be the victims or the perpetrators, just that they “are about to be involved in very bad situations.”

But knowledge, he says, isn’t the problem. Doing something with it is.

Enter John Reese (Jim Caviezel), a presumed-dead CIA agent who is haunted by something from his past (how original).

Finch thinks he needs a purpose and offers Reese a job: Help him stop whatever bad situations are about to happen and, presumably, find redemption along the way (Reese was one of those government agents who did bad things for what he thought was the greater good).

Caviezel does kick some serious butt, which was fun to watch. But when he’s not beating up bad guys, he’s watching them and listening in on their phone calls, which isn’t so fun to watch.

Emerson and Taraji P. Henson, as a police officer hot on Reese’s trail, are also doing good work, but the show just felt muddled. I’m all for taking a leap of faith and believing something, well, unbelievable for the purposes of entertainment, but this concept is a little silly.

Then there’s “Unforgettable” (cheesy name alert!), which stars the thoroughly likeable Poppy Montgomery (“Without a Trace”) as Carrie Wells, a former cop with a flawless memory.

She, too, is haunted by something from her past, the one thing she can’t remember: Who murdered a loved one when they were kids.

She’s living in New York City, volunteering at a nursing home by day and making money counting cards at underground casinos by night, when someone in her apartment building is murdered.

Carrie is the only witness, so the detective (Dylan Walsh, “Nip/Tuck”) working the case — who also happens to be her ex-boyfriend — brings her on as a consultant. Her condition makes her an ideal witness; she can actually go back in her mind and replay things that have happened to her, zeroing in on small details she may have missed the first time around.

Sounds about as believable as an advanced system that can predict crimes, right?

But “Person of Interest” focuses more on the crimes that are about to happen than on the people trying to stop them. “Unforgettable” focuses more on Carrie, and it’s better for it.