By Kate Stanhope

Picture-perfect locale? Check. Beautiful people who happen to solve crimes? Check. At first glance, USA’s new series Graceland seems perfectly in step with the rest of the cable network’s famous “blue sky” brand.

But it only takes the first five minutes of the pilot for the drug needles to come out, for a man to get shot, and for viewers to realize that the forecast isn’t as sunny as it seems. “It’s a little more partly cloudy with a chance of rain kind of thing,” star Daniel Sunjata tells TVGuide.com with a laugh.

Indeed, Graceland is a step in a new direction for the network. Premiering on Thursday at 10/9c, the series is based on true events about a beachfront property seized by the government, aka Graceland, and used as an undercover residence for FBI, DEA and Customs agents.

Long before the show’s creator and executive producer Jeff Eastin brought master criminal Neal Caffrey and FBI agent Peter Burke to life on White Collar, he came up with the idea for Graceland after meeting with an agent who had been in charge of one of these undercover houses. “He introduced me to some of the real guys in the house. I talked to some of them and you start realizing, these are really interesting characters,” Eastin says. “The lives they lead are fascinating.”

Read More Graceland Leads USA Into Dark Waters – Today’s News: Our Take | TVGuide.com.