If you need fast-paced, breathless drama, "Rectify" is not  going to be your gig.

But if you want something thoughtful and just a wee bit quirky, the new Sundance Channel's first scripted drama set in a small Georgia town is as leisurely and contemplative as a Southern man on his porch at dusk with a cigarette and a glass of sweet tea.

Created by former Atlantan Ray McKinnon, the six-episode series debuting Monday at 9 p.m. focuses on Daniel Holden ( played by Aiden Young), a man who spent 19 years in death row who was released on what some perceive was a technicality.

McKinnon explores how Holden adjusts to the world after spending years accepting the fact he was going to die. Holden is enigmatic, almost catatonic at times, as he rediscovers what it's like to live again like a regular human being. The first six episodes represent his first week out of prison.

Young, an Australian actor unknown to Americans, calls his character an "angelic man-boy." The town seems pleasant enough on the surface, he said, but it's "built on secrets and history. I think [Ray] was drawn to the idea of what we do when a character re-emerges from our past. Where do we find the drama there?"

He also found the slow-paced rhythm unusual for modern television: "It has a lyricism, a beauty. There's truth and self in it. I'm sure there will be a lot of people who will watch it and be intrigued while others may be frustrated by its rhythm."

Young calls McKinnon "part sage, part genius, part fool, part actor. He's a very very different human being from the majority of people drawn to the glitz and glamour of show business. This story in 'Rectify' doesn't go for cheap sensationalism. It's refreshing."

I wrote a profile of Ray McKinnon, which was in the 4/21/13 Sunday print Living section and available here on myajc.com.

To Abigail Spencer, the actress who plays Holden's loyal sister Amantha, "the most dramatic stuff is going on inside our souls."

She plays Holden's "protector," quitting her job in Atlanta to be with him. She spent years fighting the justice system and finding DNA evidence that enabled him to be released from prison.

McKinnon, who has worked on numerous films and TV shows over the years including "Designing Women," "O Brother Where Art Thou" and "Footloose," was a major go-to actor for Horizon Theater in the late 1980s. "He was cast as the quirky romantic in several plays," said Lisa Adler, who still runs the theater. "He's a very handsome guy in an untraditional Southern sort of way."

She said films he's produced (including his Oscar-winning short "The Accountant") are "based in a truth he knows. I think in Hollywood it's hard for people to find something authentic. I think Ray tries to find the authentic in himself. He has a Southern flair."

Walton Goggins, an actor best known as Boyd Crowder on FX's acclaimed series "Justified," calls his good friend and mentor McKinnon a man who purposely avoids Hollywood pretenses, dressing "just this side of homeless. It's kind of his version of incognito." He said McKinnon "is not predictable in his approach to the craft. He's a guy who's constantly questioning things and questioning himself. He's a guy who digs deeper. More often than not, he's the smartest guy in the room."

Goggins, who was considered for the lead role of "Rectify" when it was an AMC project a few years ago, said McKinnon was really curious "what it's like to be removed from society and how you enter it again."

McKinnon, Goggins added, "loves to laugh. He loves to cry. He finds happiness in sadness as do I. Ray through his writing is able to unearth that and move audiences with his observations. In a homogenized world, he's a reformist. In a world where most things are predictable, drama on cable thankfully isn't."

The Hollywood Reporter gave "Rectify" rave reviews:

There is so much to love in the originality of Rectify, but Young’s performance is so central to it all that it would be inconceivable if he doesn’t get Emmy recognition for his effort... what makes Rectify so rich and compelling are the choices it makes to avoid predictability – not just in its bold choice of immersive pacing, but because it puts characters (and complicated ones) into what feels like a familiar story, and makes it seem new. Sundance found a strong storyteller in McKinnon, who finds real depth with Daniel. But Rectify could have easily floundered if it hadn’t found Young, whose face and mannerisms bring Daniel’s life back from the dead.

Variety was equally effusive:

Once again demonstrating that compelling drama can come from unlikely sources, Sundance Channel expands on the inroads it’s made with miniseries in “Rectify,” a series with a strong indie-film sensibility and slow-as-molasses, hypnotic pace. If that doesn’t exactly scream boffo box office, it does represent the sort of quality that can put a network on the media’s radar, buoyed as it is by Aden Young’s wonderfully stoic performance as a man who spent 19 years on death row before being freed by DNA evidence. Someone understandably refers to the protagonist as “Starman,” but his distant stare and alienation better approximate the vibe in “Sling Blade.”

Here's the 30-second trailer:

TV preview

"Rectify," 9 p.m. Mondays, Sundance Channel