Add a dash of "Dynasty" and a pinch of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman."

Throw in an assortment of hunks, babes and a post-Civil War horse-breeding family reduced to turmoil when it takes in a troublemaking orphan.

And, voil, you've got "Legacy," UPN's best new series of the fall.

You can say this about the world according to the Logan family -- average-looking people need not apply. Every major character is either ruggedly handsome or stunningly gorgeous. Everybody dresses well, and even the horses look good. Beautifully filmed in Virginia (the story takes place in Kentucky, but you could have fooled me), the series packs a solid punch as we come to know the Logans, a proud Irish family run by patriarch Ned Logan (Brett Cullen).

A widower with two handsome twentysomething sons and two younger daughters, Logan adopts Jeremy, whom he thinks is a 12-year-old orphan from New York.

"He's just a boy -- how much trouble could he be?" Logan asks. But a quick cut to the next scene with the lad (Ron Melendez, who resembles a younger Brad Pitt) cheating at poker on his train ride south, puts the true picture in focus. Turns out he's 17 (he lied about his age) and is trouble waiting to happen.

It doesn't take long. The kid lifts a watch from the town's mayor, which is witnessed by one of the Logan sons. Then, while he's learning to ride the Logans' prize horse, the steed breaks a leg.

All the while, son Sean, about to become engaged, finds romance with a beautiful employee in the Logan household.

It's about time one of the networks put on a good, old-fashioned, soap-opera-ish drama complete with lust, revenge, tragedy and romance that focuses on a complicated family.

UPN has a thing for the Civil War era: Its bawdy new sitcom, "The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer," takes place in the Lincoln White House. But if I had to guess (especially after seeing the disastrous first-episode ratings for "Pfeiffer"), "Legacy" has a rosier future.

Its executive director is Chris Abbott, a University of Oregon graduate who has written for such series as "Dr. Quinn," "Cagney & Lacey" and "Magnum, p.i."

It's going to be fun following the Logan clan, crises and all.

© The Oregonian