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Review: LIFE - The complete first season
"Life was his sentence. Life is what he got back." Network: NBC
Starring:
Damian Lewis, Sarah Shahi, Adam Arkin, Robin Weigert and Brooke Langton
What It Is About:
Detective Charlie Crews served time in prison for a crime he didn't commit. When his close friend and attorney Constance Griffiths gets him out of there, he decides to return to the force, since that has been one of the only things he really has been good at it. While he's solving crime with his new, but troubled partner Dani Reese, he also starts to investigate his own case to find out who exactly is responsible for the crime for which he was arrested. Not everybody is convinced of his innocence though, which makes it hard for him, both in his job and his private life.
What Is Good
It's a light, but yet somehow even dark cop-produceral that is character based and includes a lot of humour as well as serial elements that go through most of the individual episodes. That being said, it's an interesting mixture of elements which makes the show interesting. In opposite to other shows, "Life" does not insult the intelligence of the viewer, but challenges them through smart writing which distinguishes the show from other crime producerals. The acting on the show is just as satisfying as the writing, especially the chemistry between the two leads, Damian Lewis and Sarah Shahi, is impressive. The characters are not perfect, they have real flaws which makes them fairly interesting to watch. The show has wonderful dialogue and great dialoge exchanges that make each episode a pleasure to watch and it's a good idea to have a Zen-transformed cop who was in prison to tackle crime. In opposite to many other shows, music is used effectively and the soundtrack choices are pretty neat.
What Is Bad
There are actually not a lot of bad things you can say about "Life". The cases of the week are a bit weak in the beginning, but get better as the series progresses. The characters are all interesting, but supporting characters like Constance, Lt.Davis or Ted get very little screen time and therefore need to be fleshed out a bit more. Apart from that, the only thing to ruin another wise very good should would be if they made "Grey's Crimefighters" out of it and started to focus on, sigh, relationships.
Bottom Line
"Life" is a smart and very entertaining show that doesn't insult your intelligence, but yet is not hard to follow. In a season where a lot of new shows disappointed me after a couple of episodes ("Dirty Sexy Money", "Pushing Daisies"), this is actually one of the new shows that I enjoyed the most (right next to "Samantha Who?" and "Chuck") and therefore it's more likely that I continue to watch "Life" next season than "DSM" or "PD". There has been some conclusion at the end of the first season, but the show hasn't resolved everything, there is still plenty to figure out and since the show hasn't been exactly a ratings gem, it's still a possibility that the show gets cancelled before it has resolved most of its storyline. Therefore you should think twice about watching the show, because although it's good, its lackluster ratings and upcoming bad timeslot (on Friday Nights) might kill it and you will end up disappointed.
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powerofnature) wrote,
