FOX's new supernatural drama "Point Pleasant," opens with a body splashing down into a rain-spattered, dark-blue ocean. It's a very spooky moment, somewhat muted by the rapid appearance of pouty-lipped, buff teens frolicking on a beach that purports to be in Point Pleasant, N.J., but is actually sun-drenched San Diego.

We soon learn that the shapely body belongs to a girl who is the daughter of the devil himself.

But, as Hamlet himself observed, "The devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape."

To creator-executive producer Marti Noxon ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer"), the reference is more recent. "Not surprisingly," she says, "the agents of both good and bad, in fact, everybody, is really good-looking. We're operating on the principle from that great speech in 'Broadcast News,' that if the devil was somebody, it would be somebody really attractive."

Delivered by Albert Brooks, the speech says, in part, "What do you think the devil's going to look like if he's around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. ... He will look attractive, and he will be nice and helpful."

In "Point Pleasant," which premieres after "American Idol" on Wednesday, Jan. 19, then moves to Thursdays after "The O.C." starting Jan. 20, the devil's little girl is Christina Nickson (Elisabeth Harnois), a doe-eyed blonde who appears to wear, as Buffy once did, a cross necklace. After teen lifeguard Jesse (Sam Page) plucks her from the ocean during a storm, she is brought to the house of local doctor Ben Kramer (Richard Burgi), wife Meg (Susan Walters) and daughter Judy (Aubrey Dollar).

While sinister forces in New York debate Christina's future and the unfolding of her latent dark powers, she discovers that her long-lost mother actually came from Point Pleasant and was a good, saintly woman. So the crux of the series rests on whether Christina takes after Dad or Mom, and the fate of the world may depend on her decision.

Meanwhile, Christina's very presence has an unsettling effect on Point Pleasant, whose residents suddenly act in uncharacteristic ways. On hand to push that along is mysterious, charismatic Thomas Boyd (Grant Show), who insinuates himself into the lives of Christina and others.

Through him, "the devil is trying to entice the ladies in the area," Burgi says.

"He's seen briefly in the pilot as this guy who comes in and basically does the explaining-guy thing," Noxon says. "But Explainer Man quickly becomes one of the more important leads of the show, because he moves to Point Pleasant with the agenda of keeping Christina on track, developing her and developing her dark side."

"There are undertones of disturbing, ominous portents," Burgi says.

Also starring are Brent Weber, Cameron Richardson, Dina Meyer, Alex Carter and Clare Carey.

According to Noxon, the idea originated with her fellow executive producer Dawn Parouse ("Tru Calling"). Noxon's nickname among "Buffy" fans was the Queen of Pain for her willingness to make characters suffer -- and apparently she's not alone in this proclivity.

"Dawn is my sister in Queen of Pain-dom," Noxon says. "She is one dark mother. We really clicked. She has a very similar sensibility to mine. She came up with this concept after seeing 'The Omen II.' What she keyed into is this idea of a teenager who's becoming aware of this really dark lineage, and the idea that the teenager is not overtly bad or demonic or anything, so this revelation comes as a real surprise.

"In 'Omen II,' there's not so much conflict, as he goes to the dark side pretty fast. Dawn's idea was, what if there was an equally good side to the character. What if there was a real duality between the 'Rosemary's Baby' of it and the mother?"

Although the mother doesn't turn up immediately, Noxon says that she's not the only thing that can prevent Christina from following in her daddy's cloven hoofprints.

"It's the 'Omen' paradigm," she says. "She's going to have a lot of power and try to drive the world into the crapper, ultimately. But a lot of the same values hold true that held true on 'Buffy,' that love and family are the only things that hold you together.

"The relationships that she forges are volatile because they're emotional, but they're also the things that might save her. The family she lives with, and the people she cares about, become her support system."

Christina does bear the mark of the devil: a whirligig symbol in the iris of one eye that looks like three sixes melded together. For what it's worth, the lines that talk about this, in which this "flaw ... on your iris" is explained as a "birthmark," are disturbingly similar to lines spoken by Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway in "Chinatown." But since the villain of that piece, John Huston, is dead, it's unlikely he'll show up in a cameo as the Prince of Darkness.

In fact, Noxon says, it's unlikely Christina's father will make an appearance anytime soon, even though "Buffy" was populated by all sorts of demons.

"I saw 'Legend,' and it just doesn't work," says Noxon, referring to a 1985 Ridley Scott fantasy in which Tim Curry played a big, red, horned Lord of Darkness. "In our show, although it's obviously genre, it's obviously big, and a lot of weird and woolly stuff happens, we want to keep it in the realm of the maybe-possible. In terms of tone, its model is closer to 'The X-Files' than 'Buffy.'

"There's always going to be some way you can explain this stuff away in the real world. As soon as you have a guy with cloven hooves and a big tail, you laugh. We vow that there will be little, if no, latex."