(S01E07) A show like New Amsterdam is bound to have a lot of unanswered questions. Luckily for us viewers, many of those questions get answered in each episode. For instance, in this episode we finally learned that Chris Bauer is the father of Buffy Summers.
Seriously though, it sure was nice to see familiar faces from two of my favorite shows of the past. I understand that Kristine Sutherland has taken a break from acting but I don't understand why we don't see more of Chris Bauer. I always thought his character on The Wire could easily have his own show.
It was nice how they managed to work 9/11 into John's history. It only makes sense that a person with such strong ties to New York would be extremely affected by such a tragedy.
It was also refreshing to see something from John's more recent past. Personally, I find the period flashbacks a little hokey. The clothes, the music and especially the references. At least with this episode, the worst thing we'll get is some lame Giuliani reference.
I know Andy was John's first partner and all but I find it hard to believe that after seeing everyone he ever cared about grow old, infirm, incoherent and eventually die, Andy's death would be so hard to take. He's had wives and children pass on right before his eyes and this guy is the one who really made an impact? It's not a leap I'm willing to take.
Once again, I am less interested in the crime being solved and more intrigued by the people from John's past. I enjoyed seeing how Andy's happy home made such an impression on John and it made sense to me that it would be particularly hard to get back to those memories when he feels so close to living a normal life. I still feel that he and Dr. Sarah ended up together way too fast but it's becoming increasingly clearer that John desperately wants to be mortal. For me, that is what this show is about.
Of course, there had to be some corruption involved in this convoluted story. I don't mind that Andy was trying to rip off the criminals, but what made him think he wasn't going to get exposed eventually? If John is investigating the shooting, he has to find out about Andy's reason for being there. Andy's sudden concern for his pension and his reputation was too much for me to swallow.
Even more ridiculous was Joe's ex-partner getting arrested in the end. I was hoping that I was wrong about him being the shooter but that was clearly too much to wish for. I guess we just have to assume that he went to prison quietly without telling anyone the entire story.
We can assume that the whole point of the ending scene was for John to realize that he is still immortal and Dr. Sarah isn't the one for him. However, considering how ambiguous the whole thing is anyway, how can he be sure?
This show barely keeps me coming back from week to week and tonight's episode made me look forward to the series end.
Giveaway Monday: That '70s Show The Complete Series Stash box set
Giveaway Monday: Back to You season one DVD
Six shows that I am watching pretty regularly this season
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-08-2008 @ 8:40AM
cathy said...
The premise to this show was exciting but every episode ive been annoyed with some of the scenes. It seems like the writers dont spend more than 5 min thinking out a scene. The one where they find the dead body on the sand for one. There is an old man 8 feet away with a geiger counter walking around. Now granted I am not a police officer but I find it hard to believe that the police would allow this to happen at a crime scene. I find it even harder to believe that the old man would want to be walking around a dead body. I know they had to find the bullet to match it up but there are a dozen other ways they could have done this if the writers spent a little more time with it. How about not having the body in trhe sand. And that thought took me 30 sec to come up with. Scenes like this happen every episode and at the beginning I allowded that it was a new show and needed time, but Im at the point that I'm so distracted with weak scenes I find myself not caring about the whole show.
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4-08-2008 @ 9:21AM
Adam P said...
Not a geiger counter... a metal detector. They weren't looking for a radioactive bullet- just the regular kind. But good point that it was too convenient for an old man to be hanging around a crime scene looking for quarters.
This episode was too predictable. I knew from the first meeting with the partner that he had done it. I knew he was going to get shot at the end. It was like riding on a train -- you knew exactly where you were going to end up.
I like the show and want it to continue -- with weird immortal stuff!
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4-08-2008 @ 1:28PM
bc said...
I guess you've never been to a beach in the USA. Old people with metal detectors are ubiquitous. Apparently senility makes raking through other people's garbage seem entertaining.
4-08-2008 @ 9:38AM
bruce said...
You can't eyeball a slug and say it's from the same gun. Plus, to assume the shooter used the same gun is a faulty assumption. To match bullets you have to look at them under a microscope and it's not always easy to do. But here they just eyeball it and it's a magical match. Very lame.
And yeah Andy was so desperate for John to investigate the circumstances of his shooting when he got shot trying to hold up someone, being the corrupt selfish evil cop that he is... it makes no sense.
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4-08-2008 @ 9:45AM
bruce said...
Oh one more thing. I was wondering how long John A had been with the NYPD, since he changes jobs and identities every 10 years (otherwise people will start to notice that he doesn't age at all). So now we learned that he joined the NYPD in 2001. Thus, he only has 3 more years before he's got to leave. While I don't see the show lasting 3 more seasons, it seems they've built a limit into how long the show can last. Unless he changes jobs and we follow him to his new identity and career. Maybe he'll become a dry cleaner in the garment district or something.
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4-08-2008 @ 12:17PM
vacelts said...
I always guessed that Sara was "the one," but then who is. My guess is Eva, the partner.
http://redlightnaps.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/new-amsterdam-reclassified/
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4-08-2008 @ 12:18PM
vacelts said...
Bruce, unless the show is going on the idea that he finds (or thinks he finds) his true love in those three years and therefore give him more time in one job because he thinks he is finally mortal.
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4-08-2008 @ 1:46PM
bruce said...
vacelts, if either one were to happen, the show's plot would be moot and there'd be no purpose to its continuation.
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4-08-2008 @ 2:02PM
nattyff said...
don't think so, it could be interesting see a cop show with an ex-inmortal that have a very different view of the world, and the way he relates to people... why all shows have to be essentially the same???. A show with a verrrrrryyyy odd story line, count me in!!! :)
4-08-2008 @ 5:16PM
Jennifer said...
Argh, so not a good episode (though hey, welcome back Joyce Summers!) until the end. I'm still confused as to how someone who is DYING can still wander around looking perfectly fine for days on end. I could buy it when they did it on Farscape because the character who was "dying, not an invalid!" was a giant walking plant, but on this show on a non-Amsterdam, nope.
Am curious to see how they finish off the show, though.
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4-08-2008 @ 5:25PM
s thompson said...
I've always enjoyed series that deal with immortality either on a major or minor level. For instance, Angel would often flash back to the past as well as the lead character in Forever Knight. (Both of which did it better than this show.) I really liked the pilot episode, but the show has lost a lot of momentum with me.
In many ways, there is a Highlander element to this series. However, for the most part, Highlander was a better show as well.
So far, this show is at least more watchable than the ill-fated 1970s series The Immortal. For those of you who don't recall, ABC took an excellent science fiction novel by James Gunn and turned it into a fifth-rate clone of The Fugitive.
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4-08-2008 @ 6:37PM
Adam P said...
BC--
I just thought that like any other TV show with a crime scene it might be taped off to keep treasure hunters from inadvertently claiming the corpse's wallet. HA!
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4-08-2008 @ 7:20PM
Tracey said...
I'm with Bruce on this one. The show has a Gilligan's Island problem: they want to get off the island, but if they ever do, there's no show. John wants to become mortal, but if he ever does, it's just another crime procedural. And let's face it: the crime procedural parts aren't the show's strength.
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4-08-2008 @ 10:12PM
Karen said...
I'm with you on this one, Paul. The pilot grabbed my attention, especially with the year-by-year photos of Times Square (previously Longacre Square--which I knew without even living 400 years) and the CGI of New York growing organically from its pre-Colonial wasteland. But the writing is so bad that each week has gotten more painful. Last week--the one with the artist, and the descendant of his estranged son--was so bad I had to turn it off midway through.
Last night was just ridiculous. The writing was so cliched that--literally--from the moment Amsterdam complimented Andy's old partner on his dog, I knew the partner was going to be the killer. And how did Didi get cured after all, if Andy didn't get $1 million to spend on his Brazilian doctor treatment? The opportune convenience of the metal detector guy was laughable--not because those guys aren't at the beach all the time, I know they are, but because he was calmly going about his business about 15 feet away from a dead body.
There were so many touches like that that it just about drove me insane. Not to mention that, in a show about a guy who's lived in NYC for 400 years, and names himself after it in all his incarnations, it would be nice if the location shots weren't so obviously NOT NYC.
Well, it's all over next week, and it was nice...ish, while it lasted. I'll hope to see Coster-Waldau again, cause he's so very, very pretty, but I won't miss this show.
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4-09-2008 @ 5:21PM
clgbutterfly said...
The only thing in this show that grabs me is the great work the Historian has done with the past scenes. They apparently spent so much time getting the historical stuff right they forgot to write any good scripts.
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4-09-2008 @ 11:07PM
Wilymon said...
is ANYONE else bothered by the fact that Amsterdam made that little kid believe that his dead mother was ok and on her way to the ER?! fine, he's trying to talk down a killer, but look at that kid's face. look at what he's been through and imagine what he'll have to go through when he realizes that his mom is still lying on the floor of the living room. arg! i hate such irresponsible writing!
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