I just bought the season 1 DVD last week and I finished the last episode today. I had only caught one episode while it was airing but now it’s going to get a season pass on the household DVR.
With the supersaturation of cop shows in the primetime market, I’m always hesitant to give new ones a chance. But this one blew me away. Damian Lewis is amazing and I’d never heard of him before. Sarah Shahi is great (and gorgeous) as his partner. While it was happening, I was pissed off at the writer’s strike, but now I’m glad because I get more seasons of critically-acclaimed-yet-not-good-ratings-wise shows like this and Pushing Daisies.
One of my favorite moments of the series is when he’s sitting at his computer and he doodles a smiley face on a sticky note and sticks it on his screen, then smiles like a goofy idiot. I think that captures the Charlie Crews character in one moment. (I didn’t spoiler that since it aired a while ago and it’s not very plot relevant I don’t think. Feel free to correct me.)
So did/does anybody else watch this? I’m not very optimistic for season 2 since it’s been moving to the Friday night at 10 death slot, but hopefully NBC’ll keep it around like they did Friday Night Lights.
I love the show. I haven’t watched it in so long I can’t say anything remotely intelligent about it, but I’ll definitely be watching the season premiere when it’s on.
I especially like Adam Arkin. They’re really a good mix of characters as a whole though.
I bought the DVDs to watch this week. I love Damien Lewis, but I didn’t get the chance to watch it last season.
Since you’re impressed with Lewis’s work, I would suggest renting/buying HBO’s Band of Brothers. He is absolutely amazing as Major Richard Winters. Also, check out Keane, which is depressing and frightening because Lewis does such an amazing job of a mentally ill homeless man. I mean, it was one of the most powerful, subtle performance I have ever seen.
He’s a very talented man. I hope NBC doesn’t kill Life.
I gave it a shot, but it got on my nerves when the lead character was always right and his female partner was always cynical (and wrong) and his live-in accountant/housekeeper was always frazzled… I just didn’t see any potential for character development and I didn’t care about the larger mystery.
Absolutely. I tried the pilot and hated it. It was equally filled with things I felt wrong.
First off, before watching it I had actually read a Cecil article about how people wrongfully convicted get nothing but a symbolic compensation (at best) for their trouble. And one of the points is that Damian Lewis becomes rich after suing the State. Couldn’t the writers have checked their own plot? It’s just a minute on Google, guys.
Second, I was very much expecting that Damian Lewis would act like a cop who’s been a long time in prison: somebody tough, acting almost like a criminal himself. Instead, apparently he had spent ten years reading the same book about zen and ended up a zen master. Yeah. Because that happens.
Then there was the young top model pretending to be a mean cop, with nobody actually noticing the striking contrast. Talk about an elephant in the room. And the show suffered from the CSI syndrome of a victim’s relatives being sociopathic emotionless cripples: they interview the stepfather of a dead kid, and Damian Lewis decides that he’s innocent because “He’s really sad”?. No, he isn’t. He was mildly bothered at best. But nobody cries in cop shows.
But the part that really got me was the thing with the dog: Damian Lewis wants to extract a bullet from the ground with his knife. Only he does that while holding a dog in his arms, and doing a stabbing motion instead of approaching the knife to the soil and shoveling, just so the audience will think that he’s a psycho or something. Nobody does that! Are you kidding me?
Pheeew. Sorry about the rant.
I love this show. Though I think I could watch Damian Lewis read the phone book for an hour. He has a very intriguing way of moving his mouth when he speaks.
(Incidentally, he doesn’t really do anything for me when speaking in his normal voice. Weird, huh?)
Love it. Looking forward to the premiere. I can usually take or leave cop shows but I like an interesting lead like that. Of course I’m also looking forward to The Mentalist because Simon Baker is yum, I mean, compelling.
Yes, that’s what happens usually. But dudes do sue and have won larger amounts. The kind of millions he’s supposed to have is doubful, but a million $ is not a huge stretch.
On further reflection, the fact that the main character paid all this Zen lip service (which conveniently let him eliminate obvious-but-innocent suspects while zooming in on hidden evidence, all with psychic accuracy) but still went out of his way to give spurious traffic tickets to his ex-wife’s new husband made him even less watchable:
a) His time in jail didn’t seem to hurt him in any way - rather it turned him into an always-right Zen master able to make other cops look foolish (character is flawlessly correct).
b) The wealth he gains after leaving jail is simply to justify his huge house and fancy car and endless string of hot girlfriends (character has no actual problems).
c) He’s a dick and a bully for no reason (character is a dick and a bully for no reason).
Well, I think you only watched the first few episodes, right? As the season went on it becomes apparent that a) is not true, and the guy bears some serious scars from his time in jail, which he uses the whole Zen thing as a facade to cover up. PTSD may explain c), although I don’t really remember him being a dick for no reason except to the ex’s new husband, which may be due to jealousy…
I believe I gave it a fair shake. The last episode I can remember had a subplot about a coyote that kept walking up to Crews’ house and how the Adam Arkin character was so implausibly freaked out by it, which I guess was the end of my patience.
Meh. I feel like this is such a minute detail to pick on to dislike the show about. If I wanted to watch a documentary on what really happens to people after they’re wrongfully convicted, I’d watch the History channel. I’m watching Life, though, which happens to be a fictional show about a fictional cop so I’m willing to tone down my nitpick-dar a bit.
He spent twelve years in solitary. I didn’t really get the impression he’s a zen master, just a guy who studied zen for most of his years in solitary. Furthermore, as the season progresses he becomes a lot more frayed around the edges, and the season finale is a complete 180 on his normal personality and more fitting of a wrongfully-imprisoned cop.
There’s been crying in a few episodes.
Again, such a minute detail. That happened in the first five minutes of the first episode. Yeah, it was for dramatic effect and yeah, it was a little loopy. But it was introducing us to the character. I don’t see the big deal. But it’s whatever floats your boat I suppose. Or sinks it, I guess.
Best cop show in many years. Great premise, realistically flawed characters. And the last few episodes blew me away, especially the sudden car accident.
Can’t wait for it to come back, guess it will be a week or two?
