A Virus That Speaks Of a Deadly World Plot

What can you make of a hero whose license plate reads ''EBOLA''? It's probably best not to take him, or the entertaining but goofy series he's in, too seriously.

''The Burning Zone,'' which has its premiere tonight on UPN, is the first of the season's many ''X-Files'' clones. Its hero is Dr. Edward Marcase, who survived the deadly Ebola virus as a child and grew up to become a virologist. Now he is the head of a top-secret government team investigating rare diseases, some so bizarre they seem to come from outer space. This week the team battles a virus with a brain of its own, and a plan to take over the world.

The idea is ''Outbreak'' meets ''The X-Files,'' and everyone involved in ''The Burning Zone'' keeps a straight face. But the show's greatest appeal is to more specialized, cultish taste; intentionally or not, it offers the loopy delights of a cut-rate, over-the-top horror movie.

Marcase (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) has a brooding style. His closest colleague is the no-nonsense Dr. Kimberly Shiroma (Tamlyn Tomita). ''I've heard of you,'' he says when they meet. ''Molecular-geneticist-pathologist.''

Shamelessly echoing Scully and Mulder of ''The X-Files,'' she is the rationalist and he is willing to consider any possibility, the more paranormal the better.

How else can he explain a virus whose symptoms in human beings include bleeding from the eyes and behavior that resembles demonic possession? ''What if they do have a collective consciousness?'' he wonders after the virus speaks to him through a possessed victim and reveals a viral conspiracy to wipe out humanity.

The team's stock characters also include a fearless security expert and a bureaucratic government contact. And special effects are not this series' strong point. A supposedly new microbe-imaging system looks like the inside of a multicolored lava lamp.

Over all, this new show helps demonstrate just how good ''The X-Files'' is at keeping its balance, one foot in reality and one in the unexplained. ''The Burning Zone'' is always threatening to go completely out of control. It might as well play to that strength and follow its silliest, campiest instincts.

THE BURNING ZONE

UPN, tonight at 9

(Channel 9 in New York)

Created by Coleman Luck; James D. Mc Adams and Coleman Luck, executive producers; Carleton Eastlake and Rob Gilmer, co-executive producers; produced by Ed Ledding; Dr. Kimberly A. Shriner, infectious-disease consultant. A production of Universal Television.

WITH: Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Dr. Edward Marcase), Tamlyn Tomita (Dr. Kimberly Shiroma), James Black (Michael Hailey) and Michael Harris (Dr. Daniel Cassian).