Life

As the mighty Admiral Neck and charismatic Canyon have already stated, there are a lot of new shows about to debut in the Autumn season here in the US of A.


One of them is a show called "Life" in which a cop is wrongly convicted for murder and spends 12 brutal years in prison before being exonerated, receiving a huge amount of cash and being reinstated and promoted to Detective as part of the settlement.


When I first heard of this series I was wondering if it would be a basic procedural with a Prison Break conspiracy arc, which frankly didn't grab me.


Then the prospect of two copper-headed investigative heroes in TV arose as Damian Lewis plays the lead role of Charlie Crews. Lewis was utterly brilliant in Band of Brothers and I've been hypnotised to forget Dreamcatchers, so when I got to watch an advance preview of his new series I was quite hopeful.


The first episode is packed with all the exposition that a TV executive requires and the first case for Crews and his beautiful, tough but troubled partner Dani Reese (played by Sarah Shahi, former NFL cheerleader and The L Word alumni), revolves around the murder of a child.


Crews' Zen philosophy that kept him mostly intact in prison serves to set him apart in the real world as he approaches things from an alternative perspective. Predictably this brings him into conflict with his new partner who herself is trying to put her career back on track after drug issues, hence being lumbered with the partner nobody wants.


We are also introduced to Ted Earley, an ex-con who served time for some creative accounting who was saved by Crews while inside and now handles the Zen Detective's cash. Earley is played by Adam Arkin which is another reason I'm cutting Life some slack.

As the episode progresses the audience is shown that Crews isn't just different because of a paperback book on Zen he read but because he might just be insane.

There are attempts at levity through Crews coming to term with the modern world, mainly to add to Crews' almost childlike sense of wonder as he discovers "the future is now" in more than a philosophical sense. These moments reminded me of Angel and how hilarious David Boreanaz was getting frustrated at his mobile phone. Except Angel was much funnier, but if you've seen Boreanaz dance you know it is unfair to make a comparison.

The case is wrapped up in a way to show Crews knows how things work from both sides of the prison bars and the story arc for the season is mapped out for all to see. And I literally mean there is a visual aid.

Frankly, the procedural element of the show doesn't hold together very well but hopefully that is due to it becoming almost an afterthought due to cramming in as much information for the audience as possible.
Things the audience is to remember:
1) Crews likes to eat fruit.
2) He owns a mansion without any furniture in it (keep an eye out for a cave full of bats in the future).
3) He is NOT GAY (as shown as he bounds upstairs like a puppy chasing a ball whilst following a scantily clad and never to be seen again blonde).
4) He says he is not looking for revenge against those who framed him. Nuh-uh. It wouldn't be Zen. Honest.

This is really a series that will take a few episodes to get up and running but I'll certainly have another look at it when the series begins 26th of September on NBC.

It could go either way, at least it isn't on Fox so it might get a few episodes to find its feet, plus it runs after Heroes on Monday nights and we know that means it will be an instant success and will immediately get renewed.





My wife tells me I lost my memories of something called "Studio 60" along with Dreamcatchers in the aforementioned hypnosis session but I don't know what she's talking about.