Pilot Review: Life

Life
NBC. Wednesdays at 10.
Cast: Damien Lewis, Sarah Shahi, Adam Arkin, Robin Weigert

Huh. Life has shown me something. Namely, what it has shown me is that you can take an interesting twist to the cop show genre, namely about a Cop who was wrongly incarcerated and now has knowledge of both sides of the law, and make it as hokey, by the books, and dull as a normal procedural, if not more. And the reason I say “if not more” is because it has all of the clunky things that can bog down a procedural as well as the all-too-common “vast conspiracy that the main character must break” plot points, which are just as clunky as the bad procedural elements.

But if it were just another police procedural, I wouldn’t have so many problems with it. I like the police procedural subgenre. When it’s done well on a show like CSI, I’m a big fan. But Life is trying to be more than just that, and that’s where I have the most problems with it.

But, it’s not just that it tries to be more than it is. It’s also got one of the worst lead characters and/or actors that I’ve seen in a while. The reason that I say and/or is because I’m not sure how much of the bad is Damien Lewis’ fault and how much of the bad is the scripts fault. Is Charlie (Lewis) supposed to come off like a creepy serial killer? Aren’t we supposed to believe that he’s a good guy, not someone who could concievably kidnap you, lock you in a truck, and then keep you chained up in their basement for three years? I don’t know if it’s Lewis’ creepy presence or the characters creepy, well, characteristics, but either way, it seriously doesn’t work and makes watching him unpleasant.

The only real bright spot on the show is Sarah Shahi, playing Charlie’s new partner with a questionable backstory. The character itself is not that good. She’s an archetype of the “cop who had a problem but now has dealt with it but it still haunts her.” She’s not written in a particularly flattering way, but Shahi manages to bring enough charm and substance to the character that by the end of the pilot I was really hoping that Charlie wasn’t going to tie her up in his basement. So yeah, kudos to Shahi. Also, while I can’t comment on the actor, the backstory for Arkin’s character, a former CEO who dabbled in investor trading and now manages Charlie’s money for him, is kind of clever in a certain way. But yeah, that’s about it.

So, in closing, Life is a by-the-multiple-badly-written-books cop show that tries to be more than it is and fails. The main character may or may not kill you in a dark alley, and if I learned anything from the pilot, it’s that corrections officers love harassing convicts, but that’s a lesson that I already learned from Prison Break, which, conveniently, handles it’s mass conspiracy storyline a lot better than Life. So, yup, the rating:

Rating: Not Worth Your Time