Premieres tonight on NBC, 10 p.m. ET/ 9 p.m. CT
The title of Life has a double meaning. It's both the sentence the show's hero Charlie Crews (Damian Lewis) received when he was falsely convicted of murder. But it's also meant to suggest that the show will regularly pause for some philosophical contemplation of, you know, life. As the show opens, Crews has been released from prison, where he spent a lot of time reading books like The Path To Zen. Given a handsome settlement, he nonetheless decided to resume life as a cop, bringing with him the wisdom of all those prison studies. He's strange. He's brilliant. And he gets the job done within an hour's time.
He and Life owe a lot to House, another show with a hero whose off-puttingly eccentric methods threaten to alienate him from both co-workers and the people he's trying to help. Crews hugs a lot more, however. And eats a lot of fruit. Essentially, if you add up his quirks you have the character. And if you plug those quirks into an otherwise formulaic police procedural you have the show, or at least the show suggested by this pilot.
Otherwise it's distinguished only by some nice, steely cinematography and, well, not a whole lot else. Sara Shahi plays Crews' reluctant partner, but even her resistance has begun to melt by episode's end. The presence of Adam Arkin as Crews' financial advisor and fellow ex-con is promising, but that's based more on Arkin's track record than anything he's given to do.