Ah. So there’s the interesting part.
The second episode of “New Amsterdam” is in many ways an improvement over the first. The standard reasoning is that a creative team has months to put together a solid pilot, but just a couple of weeks to get an entire series into production once they’re picked up. But between “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” and this, I’m getting the sense that lately, creators are taking the second episode as a way of saying, “Okay, now that we’ve dealt with the set-up, here’s what the show is actually going to look like.”
The second episode of “New Amsterdam” is in many ways an improvement over the first. The standard reasoning is that a creative team has months to put together a solid pilot, but just a couple of weeks to get an entire series into production once they’re picked up. But between “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” and this, I’m getting the sense that lately, creators are taking the second episode as a way of saying, “Okay, now that we’ve dealt with the set-up, here’s what the show is actually going to look like.”
And it don't look all that bad. Because in this episode, it was quickly revealed that the 65-year-old bar-owner, a bluesy old sass-talker who seemed destined to be “lead guy’s witty black friend,” was something more: the immortal detective’s son. Suddenly, things got a lot more interesting.
And then they got a lot less interesting, because we had to deal with another rote murder plot.
Which once again begs the question: Why is this character a NYPD detective? What is the point here? We’ve seen that he can make money quickly and easily – and that he can easily forge identity papers. Why bother being a civil servant? Why not some eccentric immortal man-about-town who solves murders as a hobby?
And then they got a lot less interesting, because we had to deal with another rote murder plot.
Which once again begs the question: Why is this character a NYPD detective? What is the point here? We’ve seen that he can make money quickly and easily – and that he can easily forge identity papers. Why bother being a civil servant? Why not some eccentric immortal man-about-town who solves murders as a hobby?(Answer: because that would make this a BBC series. We Americans like our heroes employed, dammit.)
A flashback shows that during the early ‘40’s, he tried his hand at being a lawyer, so at least we get the impression that at some point in his long, long life, John Amsterdam just started trying on careers for the hell of it. But the flashback – detailing, of all things, the birth of the 65-year-old bartender sidekick – is weird enough in its implications that, honestly: who gives a fuck about the murder investigation? (Not helping is the “tough-but-vulnerable lady-cop partner,” who, as far as I can tell is simply a bad actress, immediately sucking any potential personality from the procedural scenes.)
So there’s the question again: when you’ve got so many interesting ideas to play with, why sandwich it into a shitty police procedural? And yet this is not the biggest question. The biggest question, your honest-to-god “wha-huh?!” relates to how the character became immortal in the first place.
Just listen, because I am not exaggerating this at all. Centuries back, when the Dutch were slaughtering Indians on what would become Manhattan, our guy stepped in front of a sword to protect an innocent Indian woman. To save him, an old lady shaman patched him up and tossed some shaman-hoodoo his way, with the caveat that he will not grow old until he meets his true love.
This is possibly the stupidest thing I have ever typed in my life.
I can’t even begin to dissect what’s stupid about it because it defies all logic. It defies real-world logic (“Why would she bother to do that if she was apparently trying to save him?”) and story-telling logic (“Is this for any other reason than to sell a contrived romance plot?”).
So here I sit with a show about an immortal who works as a detective while trying to find his destined true love. Only one of these items deserves its own show, and only barely, without a lot of work.
As it stands, based on ratings, the viewing public – this would be the post-“American Idol” viewing public, please note, who will generally just keep the channel on for whatever the hell comes afterwards, because despite their phone-voting prowess, they are somehow not what we would call "taste-makers" – could not have given less of a shit about this show, so I doubt it will last longer than the time it takes me to finish typing this sentence. (What’s that? Still on? Hm. Just wait a few more days.) So this will probably be the last I talk about it (oh, don’t look so relieved).
But because I see a show that clearly wants to shrug off the shackles of its own self-imposed formula (at least, I want to see that), and because it will very likely be cancelled before it gets to where it wants to go, I’ve been reminded of a lot of other shows with similar goals, and similar fates.
So don’t be surprised if you see some “ISTV Classic” articles coming to a website near you. This website, as a matter of fact.
A flashback shows that during the early ‘40’s, he tried his hand at being a lawyer, so at least we get the impression that at some point in his long, long life, John Amsterdam just started trying on careers for the hell of it. But the flashback – detailing, of all things, the birth of the 65-year-old bartender sidekick – is weird enough in its implications that, honestly: who gives a fuck about the murder investigation? (Not helping is the “tough-but-vulnerable lady-cop partner,” who, as far as I can tell is simply a bad actress, immediately sucking any potential personality from the procedural scenes.)
So there’s the question again: when you’ve got so many interesting ideas to play with, why sandwich it into a shitty police procedural? And yet this is not the biggest question. The biggest question, your honest-to-god “wha-huh?!” relates to how the character became immortal in the first place.
Just listen, because I am not exaggerating this at all. Centuries back, when the Dutch were slaughtering Indians on what would become Manhattan, our guy stepped in front of a sword to protect an innocent Indian woman. To save him, an old lady shaman patched him up and tossed some shaman-hoodoo his way, with the caveat that he will not grow old until he meets his true love.
This is possibly the stupidest thing I have ever typed in my life.
I can’t even begin to dissect what’s stupid about it because it defies all logic. It defies real-world logic (“Why would she bother to do that if she was apparently trying to save him?”) and story-telling logic (“Is this for any other reason than to sell a contrived romance plot?”).
So here I sit with a show about an immortal who works as a detective while trying to find his destined true love. Only one of these items deserves its own show, and only barely, without a lot of work.
As it stands, based on ratings, the viewing public – this would be the post-“American Idol” viewing public, please note, who will generally just keep the channel on for whatever the hell comes afterwards, because despite their phone-voting prowess, they are somehow not what we would call "taste-makers" – could not have given less of a shit about this show, so I doubt it will last longer than the time it takes me to finish typing this sentence. (What’s that? Still on? Hm. Just wait a few more days.) So this will probably be the last I talk about it (oh, don’t look so relieved).
But because I see a show that clearly wants to shrug off the shackles of its own self-imposed formula (at least, I want to see that), and because it will very likely be cancelled before it gets to where it wants to go, I’ve been reminded of a lot of other shows with similar goals, and similar fates.
So don’t be surprised if you see some “ISTV Classic” articles coming to a website near you. This website, as a matter of fact.
"I Speak TV." Remembering cancelled shows so you don't have to.
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1 comment:
You would think that someone who's immortal and lived for so long would be mature enough to admit to himself that:
1. he should be out helping people and making this world a better place, which he could do best outside of the corruption of law enforcement AND outside of this country.
2. true love doesn't exist!
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