There are three big reasons to take another look at “Life,” NBC’s new police drama…but, first, here’s the premise in a nutshell:
Charlie Crew is a cop who’s arrested for a crime he didn’t commit and sent to jail for 12 years before he’s cleared; upon his release, he scores not only a considerable amount of financial compensation for being wrongly jailed but, additionally, gets himself put back on the force, mostly so that he can quietly continue to find an answer to question of who did commit the crime of which he was accused.
There, that’s out of the way. Now, on to those three big reasons to take another look at the show…
Actually, the first one’s as much a matter of principle as anything. The role of the lawyer who helps Charlie overturn his conviction was played by Melissa Sagemiller (Gayle Bishop on “Sleeper Cell”) in the pilot but is now played by Brooke Langton (Samantha Reilly on “Melrose Place”); frankly, though, the character doesn’t really get a lot of play in the pilot, so the difference between actresses is mostly negligible.
The second reason, however, is definitely worth discussing. In the fall preview, I said of Charlie Crews that he “comes across as one of those characters who’s straddling the line between eccentric and annoying, and he tends toward the latter more often than he ought to, which is troublesome.” It’s notable that they’ve re-cut the pilot to chop out a few moments here and there to attempt and remedy this problem, though I couldn’t help but notice that one of the cuts was, in fact, one of the moments that made me laugh. (When Charlie arrives at his first crime scene after returning to the force, he walks up behind two officers who are discussing things they’ve heard he’d done, and he promptly interrupts them with his own “I heard he…” moment.) Overall, the quirkiness is still there, but as we progress into the second episode – “Tear Asunder” – there’s a definite attempt to focus more on Charlie’s attempts to solve the mystery of who committed that 12-year-old crime and less on his being so bizarre. In fact, on that front, they even slide in a moment which indicates that he was completely and totally normal before he went into prison, so one presumes that they’re going to further explore the events that occurred during Charlie’s stay behind bars.
Lastly, the third reason to take another look at “Life” is that, at least based on the second episode, they’re starting to do more with Adam Arkin’s character. Arkin plays Ted Early, a former inmate who knew Charlie when they were both in the clink together; apparently, Charlie saved Ted’s life in prison and, as a result, Ted’s now serving as Charlie’s financial advisor. The pilot had a brief but funny moment tagged onto the very end, where Charlie buys an orange grove – complete with tractor – and Ted decides to take Charlie up on his offer to drive the tractor. Suffice it to say that Mr. Early probably hasn’t been called Farmer Ted a great deal, and his actions while behind the wheel of the tractor result in a plot thread which is picked up in “Tear Asunder” to great effect.
I’m still not 100% sure that “Life” is going to find an audience, but, even so, kudos to the producers for steering their boat into slightly less murky waters.
Here’s a teaser:
