Sunday, March 9, 2008

Have to Watch New Amsterdam


Damn, I missed the premier of New Amsterdam last night, and the show's not on Fox On Demand yet, so if you missed it like me, you'll have to bittorrent it or grab it off of iTunes.

The premise for the show sounds a lot like Highlander. There is an immortal living among us today, someone who is over 400 years old.
"NEW AMSTERDAM centers on a brilliant and enigmatic New York homicide detective unlike any other. And he has a profound secret -- he is immortal.

In 1642, JOHN AMSTERDAM (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), then a Dutch solider in the colony of New Amsterdam – later to become New York City -- stepped in front of a sword to save the life of a Native American girl during a massacre of her indigenous tribe. The girl in turn rescued Amsterdam, weaving an ancient spell that conferred immortality upon him. Amsterdam will not age, she told him, until he finds his one true love. Only then will he become whole and ready for mortality.

Amsterdam has found this to be a mixed blessing... "

from Fox's Official New Amsterdam Website
It's the old Highlander concept with a new cast, and a police-investigator/crime-drama twist. It sounds very cool, and the critics seem to like it. I've been going through about 10 years of Highlander withdrawal, although I don't miss the Baywatch-style slow motion love scenes of shirtless and ripped Adrian Paul. The HLer movies were utterly disappointing, although I admit, I bought a few DVD's of the most recent flicks. I did not buy the official MacLeod Highlander Sword, although I've probably been sent about a tree of Highlander memorabilia catalogues (who buys that stuff, seriously).

Although New Amsterdam seems to have ripped some ideas Highlander, I am still very excited for the show. Let's face it, the whole immortality concept is so compelling, a la Ponce de Leon. Let's just hope the cast and writers do a good job to create interesting and engaging characters, so that the show sticks around.

The best things is, New Amsterdam was totally off of my radar. I hadn't heard of it until last week. My wife who told me about it. She hates sci-fi stuff. It must be the dreamy looking leading man and the crime/cop show twist to an old sci-fi classic.

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