In the first hour of "The Philanthropist," billionaire do-gooder Teddy Rist (James Purefoy of "Rome") gets shot at, survives a hurricane and flood, risks his life to save others, is threatened by African rebels and the Drug Enforcement Agency, gets attacked by a snake and tries to escape his personal demons.

And yet the show is curiously unengaging.

Oh, it's certainly got its heart in the right place. And it's not a bad idea for a show — a billionaire committed to making the world a better place.

But it's sort of, well, dull. Despite all the story that rolls by in the premiere (9 p.m., NBC/Ch. 5).

Teddy is a hugely successful tycoon who rescues a young Nigerian boy during the hurricane/flood. The corporation that he and his business partner/friend, Philip Maidstone (Jesse L. Martin of "Law & Order") have, has its own charitable foundation — headed by Maidstone's wife, Olivia (Neve Campbell of "Party of Five"). But, while he's never shied away from throwing money at charitable causes, Teddy has never gotten personally involved.

But (TV trope alert) he's mourning the death of his young son, which seems to have opened his heart.

"The Philanthropist," which is filmed in South Africa, Mozambique and the Czech Republic, also falls back on a couple of highly overworked TV conventions that have become totally trite. The first episode opens with an incident that happens near the end of the hour, and the story is told as a series of flashbacks.

And there's an annoying music video that's supposed to convey Teddy's emotion but is just a boring interlude that feels like it's doing nothing other than killing time.

Sigh.

The story behind "The Philanthropist" is actually more interesting than the show itself. Tom Fontana ("Homicide," "Oz"), the original show-running executive producer, left the show in a dispute with NBC executives over the direction of the series. He was replaced by David Eick ("Battlestar Galactica"), whose mandate was to produce a more light-hearted, less issues-oriented series than the one Fontana envisioned.

But wait. Eight months later, Eick left the show and was replaced by — get this — Fontana.

(Eick went back to his "Galactica" roots; he's one of the executive producers on the prequel series "Caprica" that debuts next year on the Sci Fi Channel.)

If you're wondering why "The Philanthropist" — which was originally slated to debut months ago — ended up being a summer series, well, now you know.

Apparently, the change was the result of Angela Bromstad joining NBC as the network's president of scripted programming. Well, that and the fact that the network's efforts at dumb, light-hearted fare — remember "Knight Rider" and "Kath & Kim"? — didn't work out so well.

Upcoming episodes of "The Philanthropist" deal with forced labor in Burma, young women forced into the sex trade in France, and warlords in Nigeria.

The thing about any show — no matter how noble its intentions — is that it has to be entertaining in order to get people to watch. And pay any attention to the message.

Judging by the first episode, "The Philanthropist" isn't entertaining enough to make people want to watch.

Too bad.

e-mail: pierce@desnews.com