Life season premiere: Five Points

NBC

Let’s chat, shall we? After an incredibly long dry spell Life returned to the NBC schedule with a special episode on Monday night. Truth be told it was just the season premiere airing on a special night. See, NBC wants to make sure people know that Life will be on Friday nights that they have it on for two Mondays and two Fridays in a row. Guess it saves advertising fees and allows them to promote the hell out of My Own Worst Enemy.

But, I digress. Since the show has been off of the radar for nearly a year it seems fresh to even us fans who followed Charlie Crews and his quest for justice both inside and outside the police station. Now that the season premiere has come and gone it’s a good time for reflection about the show as well as discussion. And, well, look at this … we have a forum right here at CliqueClack for such discussion. So, get your thinking caps on as we present five talking points about this past episode of Life.

Detective Reese’s hair — better up or down: Last season Sarah Shahi’s character of Dani Reese wore her hair in a ponytail all of the time. Very rarely did we see her let her hair down both figuratively and literally. This season it looks like the hair is finally down and styled to be more wavy. Plus, her wardrobe has been toned down to be a bit more casual. Either this is a change by the producers to soften Reese’s image or a symbol showing Reese as someone who is becoming more comfortable with both herself and with Crews.

Donal Longe as Captain Kevin Tidwell: There was something inherently unlikeable about Robin Weigert’s Lt. Karen Davis. Maybe it was the fact that she babied Reese during her bout of alcoholism, or that she pretty much despised Crew’s return to the station. Either or, she was not someone you would be interested in going to dinner with. Yet, she had an aura about her that promoted strength and respect.

Longe’s Captain Tidwell, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be someone to either like or respect. His New York brashness (which, to be frank, doesn’t fit well on the mellow Longe), his honesty about his extra-marital affairs, and his downright flirting over Reese don’t fit with the easy going detectives. It may be that some adjustment needs to be made to the character as the weeks progress.

More or less Ted: I wonder if Adam Arkin thinks his character on Life, Ted Early, gets the screen time someone with his star power deserves. I for one certainly don’t think so, which is why I wonder why he’s even there. The man has two or three minutes of air time, tops, for each episode. I’m guessing that the money is worth his having such limited screen time.

Moving the conspiracy plot ahead faster than last season: When we last left Charlie Crews last season he was on the verge of searching for Rachel, the daughter of the family Crews was falsely accused of killing. Ten months and 52 minutes later…Walla! There she is, hiding in a secret passageway in a local hostel. Boy, if that’s not moving fast! Being that the show hopefully has a full season to work on the conspiracy story one would think that they would move a bit more carefully. But, it looks like things are going to move fast and furious as Charlie tries to find out who the real mastermind behind his frame-up was.

The episode as a whole: Perhaps the anticipation of Life’s return stoked a flame of grandeur in its fans who expected wonderful things. All in all the episode was okay, if not a bit clunky. Think of it as as your first day of school — after a summer of doing so many different things you need to learn how to learn again. That’s what Life will be doing with these first few episodes. As long as network executives give it a chance the show should be okay. And, if My Own Worst Enemy fails there’s always a chance of Life coming back on Monday nights.

Clacked by Richard Keller
on Sep 30, 2008 @ 17:39 EST5EDT