Tergesen's current character couldn't be more different from "Oz's" Tobias Beecher, a straight-laced lawyer imprisoned for killing a child while driving drunk, who eventually becomes involved in a violent affair with psychotic fellow inmate Chris Keller ("Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" star Christopher Meloni).

"I do miss [kissing Meloni]," quips Tergesen. "I'll be honest with you, I really do miss it. He's such a good actor. But you know what, ka-ching. I'd have to do this job for 30 years before I made the kind of money he's making on NBC."

Tergesen joined "Wanted" in episode two on Aug. 7 (the show airs Sunday at 10 p.m. ET), as Drake, who was running a bar - with guest star Traci Lords behind it - after being suspended by the Marshals Service for shooting a suspect.

"My warning shot hit him in face," Drake said to former training officer Conrad Rose (Gary Cole), an LAPD SWAT officer.

Rose was recruiting Drake for his multidisciplinary squad -- FBI, ATF, Naval Intelligence, LAPD and so on -- tracking Los Angeles' 100 most wanted. Rounding out the team are Ryan Hurst, Rashida Jones, Benjamin Benitez and Josey Scott.

With his long hair, handlebar mustache and 2006 blue Dodge Charger, Eddie is definitely larger than life.

"I'm the court jester," Tergesen says, "class clown, the fool."

"Lee has exploded," says series creator Jorge Zamacona, who also worked on "Oz." "He's exactly the energy the ensemble needed."

"I pretty much do what I like," Tergesen says. "There was a little concern when I first started the show from TNT that maybe I was a little too soft. They didn't really get where I was coming from, because I'm funny. But they've grown to love it. Michael Wright [TNT's senior v.p. of original programming] said to me the other day, 'At first I didn't know what you were doing, but now I totally get it.'"

Part of it is Drake's fashion sense, which would look right at home in a NASCAR infield. He's especially fond of plaid shirts with the sleeves cut off.

"You know what Eddie Drake's favorite amendment to the Constitution is?" Tergesen says then raises his fists. "Number two, the right to bare arms!"

While he doesn't have a Charger in real life, Tergesen displays his own love of the American muscle car by driving a brand-new, bright-red Ford Mustang.

"I turned 40 in July," he says, "and at the end of April, I bought that for myself. I fit into a Mustang perfectly."

Tergesen isn't the only one of the "Oz" alumni to visit "Wanted." Upcoming episodes feature Lauren Velez, Kristin Rohde, Rita Moreno and Scott William Winters.

Even when they're not working together, the "Oz" stars keep in touch. "I think I'm going to London with my girlfriend at the beginning of October," Tergesen says, "to see Eamonn Walker. He was at my birthday party on July 4th weekend in the Hamptons, as was Lauren and Kristin.

"The 'Oz' fans are pretty hardcore. It was sort of a cult thing. It was a grassroots operation that we had going, got bigger every year."

Some critics of "Wanted" have wondered why it lacks the moral ambiguity of shows like FX's "The Shield" or HBO's "The Sopranos."

"Some of the critics say, 'Where's the gray?,'" Tergesen says. "Forget that. A friend of mine sent me an e-mail, 'It's nice to see something where things are so clean-cut, not like "The Sopranos," where he's a killer, but he's a wonderful family man.'"

"I don't want moral ambiguity," Zamacona says. "This is legal ambiguity. This is a nasty world. These guys are trying to do the best they can."