New Amsterdam

Well, there's nothing really new here that vigilant couch potatoes haven't seen before. "New Amsterdam" follows the Highlander formula almost to the letter, although the protagonist is a cop instead of a pretentious art dealer.

Good-looking haunted 400 year old hero? Check. Flashback sequences? Check. Supporting cast who is clueless about his history? Check. A mortal confidant? Check. I kept waiting for someone to jump out of the shadows with a sword and shout "There can be only one!!!" Maybe it'll happen in Episode 2.

New Amsterdam has good production values, a strong cast, and likable characters. The plot for the pilot was nothing special -- a standard cop-show plot is all we'll find here. There's a murder and you can bet our hero will solve it by the end of the episode. Pretty standard. The most promising plot hook comes from the what we can see as a possible developing love triangle. Our hero, you see, may have found his soul-mate in a random woman on the subway, the woman he has sought for centuries, whose love will finally allow him to grow old. At the same time, there's a very real chemistry between him and his new female partner.

Again, it's NYPD Highlander. It's not necessarily original, but it is still very watchable. No swords, though.

I find the premise for this show really intriguing, and the lead actor Nicolai Coaster-Waldau is just about the best thing on television. He plays this character with depth and the right mix of sadness and wit. The rest of the cast is excellent as well. I hope Fox gives this show another shot next season because I'd love to see more of this story develop. I like the references to the past of New York, a city with some of the most interesting backstory in this country. That alone will give the show plenty to draw on for episodes. I loved the montage of pictures of Times Square...keep the period details accurate though (tee-pees!?)and that the glued beards don't look too cheesy!

The premise for this was great and I hoped there would be more, but since the eight episodes in 2007/2008 nothing more came, so it was a short lived series and have now been overtaken by a new series with much the same premise "forever", it is not a detective like in this one, but a coroner acting like a detective.

The reason I like this series was the fact that there could be and was in the eight episodes the back and forth in time, the series would have the possibility to have episodes that showed more of past time, then the present and that could be quit cool.

It was a very nice down to earth and close to the streets kind of police series, the acting worked and would have made it an okay series to watch all-in-all.

New Amsterdam is an example of smart, imaginative, creative shows that get no respect in Hollywood. I watched every episode and couldn't wait to see the next one.Nothing canned. Nothing stupid or predictable. You could believe this man was immortal, living multiple lifetimes and careers in his one life. It was well acted, well written, properly paced. New Amsterdam was well produced, from the title sequence, through the flashbacks, and the character development in each episode. Even the music scoring showed care in adding the most to the overall program. I was sorry the powers that be could see fit to continue the story to some conclusion. Much as what was allowed with "Angel".

I think it's too easy to say NA is similar to "Highlander," simply because its lead character is immortal. While McLeod cannot die unless beheaded, he, and his fellow immortal Nick Knight, are immortal primarily defined by their supernatural natures. The great appeal of John Amsterdam (or York, or Dutch, or any of his other aliases) is that he is a relatively ordinary man who, by virtue of having lived in New York since the 17th century, has learned much and experienced more. None of us is likely to picture ourselves as McLeod or Knight, but practically anyone can imagine that given the right circumstances, we could be John Amsterdam. He is extremely human, not at all superhuman....except for that one thing. He cannot die, not until he finds and commits to The One. It is refreshing to find a sci-fi story framed in a police setting in which the crimes are the least interesting parts of the hour we spend with him. We want to see more of John with his son, Omar. We want to go back into his past. Unfortunately, I at least have no desire to see him further his relationship with the woman he believes is The One.