Program: New Amsterdam

Network: Fox

Creators: Christian Taylor and Allan Loeb

Primary Cast: Nikolaj Coster Waldau, Zuleikha Robinson, Alexie Gilmore, Stephen Henderson, Susan Misner

A mid-season debut that has a bit of promise. That assumes, of course, that you can ignore the fact that it is yet another cop show in a sea of cop shows. That fact alone will likely doom it to be cancelled, as the competition in the cop show field is dominated by the various CSI’s and Law and Orders, although Fox has not yet given any indication one way or the other about its future (that I have seen, anyway. They may well have announced its cancellation by now and I just missed it. I don’t pay much attention to that kind of thing). The final scheduled episode is Monday the 14^th (tomorrow).

What makes this show different than the other cop shows is that it blends a bit of genre into the realistic cop-drama with an immortal lead detective. Sounds rather Highlander-ish, but it goes a bit further in that. See, John Amsterdam (Waldau), brilliant NYC detective, was born back in the 1600s in Holland. After traveling to the New World, he saves the life of a young native girl and is stabbed through the heart doing so. The girl and her mother, a kind of mystic or shaman, bring him back to life. A life that will not end until he finds his one true soul mate (annoyingly referred to as “the one” - /blanch). Adding in another twist is John’s desire to throw in the towel. At times the only reason he seems interested in finding “the one” (/belch) is so he can finally die. 350-something years is quite enough, thank you very much.

Unsurprising, each episode uses a flashback of something in John’s past. Not the most original idea, and one that will grow very old, very quickly. See, if you are continually telling me what happened rather than what is happening, then you are telling me the wrong story. The writers mix it up well though, and rather than making the past the focus of each story, they limit it, attempting to account for the influences that still affect John’s thinking. What is most enjoyable is that they don’t use the obvious “big moments” of the last 350 years. They are more personal than that for John, and very, very well done. As a matter of fact, I think the flashbacks are probably the best part of the show right now. They are certainly the most carefully developed and researched, and are tremendously interesting (I especially liked the appearance of Thoreau in the Civil War flashback – extremely well done).

What the show lacks is that kind of attention to the John’s present day. Instead, the focus on the cop-crap and the budding love interest of someone who may or may not be “the one” (/puke). They have a tremendous amount of potential to explore some really interesting stuff if they just let John lose a bit of the “in control” and “master detective” aspects of his character. Perhaps the single thing that stands out to me at the moment is memory. I have issues remembering what happened last week, and this guy remembers details from 300 years ago like he’s recalling a shopping list. How many memories can a 350 year old brain hold? How fragmented can those memories be? How difficult is it to recall them, especially with such accuracy? The cop stuff isn’t interesting. The fact that he’s 350 years old and wants to die… that’s where the story is.

So, all in all, it has potential, and I like it. I hope that Fox gives it another chance, and I hope that they slowly bend it away from the annoying cop-centric plot arc.