Life
Production may be at a standstill due to the WGA strike, but NBC’s given Life an additional episode order that will bring it to a complete first season. That’s great news. I’d be lying if I said I sampled much of this season’s new offerings, but Life got me to tune in with Damian Lewis’s talent and I’ve remained for the rest of the cast and the writing. I’m also a sucker for serialized television, so the ongoing exploration into Charlie Crews’s wrongful conviction is a nice hook. Plus, the writers have clearly learned a thing or two from past shows that have floundered in this respect by giving us clues in every single episode. This stuff never really takes over any single episode, but it’s quite welcome that there’s never an episode without some development for the so-called ‘mythology’ unlike some shows that could be accused of having ‘filler’ episodes where ongoing plotlines are forgotten about. Beyond all that, the show thrives because Crews and his partner Reese (Sarah Shahi) have a fun banter. Nothing kills a cop show quicker than when the pair of detectives lacks chemistry, and I’m not talking about the romantic kind.
Considering that the Writers’ Strike will apparently be keeping most shows off the air, methinks I’ll be catching up on Life in the New Year. I watched the pilot a while back after a group of fans contacted me to see if I had any advice for their attempts to organize, and I enjoyed it enough to keep it on the ol’ hard drive if not enough to immediately watch the proceeding episodes.