Crime Drama TV

LIFE
Episode Title: ONE
Date Airing: 04-08-2009 9:00PM

SEASON TWO FINALE EPISODE OF ‘LIFE’ – In the season two finale episode Crews (Damian Lewis) must locate his partner Reese (Sarah Shahi) who has gone missing while on loan to the F.B.I. Her disappearance is directly tied to Crews and he will do whatever it takes to get her back. In the events that transpire, shocking details about the conspiracy against Crews will be revealed. Gabrielle Reese, Donal Logue, Brent Sexton and Adam Arkin also star.

Show Cast: Damian Lewis, Sarah Shahi, Adam Arkin, Donal Logue, Brent Sexton

Via NBC thru Spoiler TV

Airing: 03-25-2009 at 9:00PM

CORONERS DEATH REVEALS DARK UNDERBELLY OF THE PROFESSION — When a Los Angeles Coroner is found murdered, his co-workers become prime suspects. Crews (Damian Lewis) and Seever (Gabrielle Union) are under pressure to quickly solve the case because if the killer is another coroner, countless murder cases could be compromised and guilty people set free. Meanwhile, Ted (Adam Arkin) attempts to reconcile with his daughter. Donal Logue and Sarah Shahi also star.

Source: NBC and SpoilerTV

I’ve yet to watch the latest episodes of these two programs this week. But the ratings have returned and it seems Lie To Me is holding its steady place for the last three weeks now.

The crime drama is averaging 13Million viewers with 4.7M in its demographic share. It is doing very well as a lead in to an episode of American Idol. It has even tied Lost in its ranking. It did help that this week, Criminal Minds was on hiatus.

Over at NBC, another crime drama series returns to steady ratings. Life, which is on the verge of being pulled out because of ratings, earned 6.7 Million viewers as it returns to Wednesday nights, following a hiatus last December.

Here are some promo photos for an upcoming Life episode called I Heart Mom.

Incidentally, Sarah Shashi, the actress playing Dani Reese on the show, is reportedly four months pregnant. Some changes to her exposure would have to be done. Producers said there could be less screen time with Sarah and Damian Lewis together as the actress may be confined to desk work to hide her belly.

NBC has confirmed season renewals for some of their shows today but there was not mention of whether or not the crime series, Life, will return a third season.

In a recent interview in a British online site, Damian Lewis expressed being absolutely clueless about a possible third season return. The actor plays zen detective Charlie Crews.

• “We’re into the second season and that will finish in March,” said Damian, speaking at the Bafta LA tea party. “Then they’ll let us know the day before we start filming, whether they want us to start filming again. That seems to be the way they do it here, so I have absolutely no idea if there’ll be a third season.”
• “A lot did get the chop because they were heavily promoted and they had to achieve certain goals as a result of that,” said Damian. “We’ve been a big critical success and we’ve been able to toddle under the radar a bit.”

Here’s hoping that Life does gets picked up for another season. The show in itself is formulaic, as far as crime series go, but it also offers something different, particularly with the story arc that the character, Charlie Crews, is pursuing.

Another piece of episodic brilliance has emerged in this fresh show. Our victim today is a man that has had a bomb vaporize the lower half of his body leaving the top half still upright. This scene is one of the weirdest I have seen on TV. If there was better access to recent pictures of episodes I would have it, but I am forced to recycle pictures from other episodes. Well anyway it turns out that this extremely ordinary seeming man is actually leading two separate lives with two separate wives. One is a Mrs. Farthing and the other is Mrs. Gale. Somehow he has convinced both of these women that he is a secret agent for the government. With each woman he acts completely different with very few similarities. So Charlie starts doing a private stakeout on the lead detective in his own case. He sees him having a heated argument with some unknown man at the park. He snaps a couple of shots for his conspiracy wall. Charlie gets back on he case at hand by meeting Dani at the police department. While he is having a conversation with Dani about Farthingale they get a officer down call from in the building. Everyone rushes down to the parking deck only to find the body of the detective in Charlie’s case. Immediately the blame starts to shift towards Charlie even though clearly he didn’t do it. After all that calms down for a minute they get a hit from the federal database. Apparently he did work for the government, wait for it, as an IRS agent. Charlie has an epiphany about the case. They start looking for only things that were the same in his double lives. It turns out that he did have a lead on a serial bomber. The whole time he really did truly just want to be a hero. Charlie and Dani catch the bomber and arrest him for Mr. Farthingale’s murder. By the way what is the twist of this week? The man arguing with the detective on the day he was murdered was Dani’s father. I hope everyone checks out my last post by clicking here.

So we’re back to my favorite show of the week. ‘Life’ just has such interesting writing with an out of the box kind way of storytelling that just makes this show very refreshing. With some of the other shows I watch sometimes it just feels like they are going through the motions with the storylines. Anyway I’m getting off the subject, this week’s episode starts with two Persian people were shot in a gas station and a third missing. So the owner of the store comes in and identifies one of the suspects as her son. When they do a little digging they find that the three Persians were dealing drugs. The mother of the missing boy gets a call saying that if they wanted the son back they would have to get them all the drug money. Meanwhile at the house Charlie’s mother in law to be rides along on a trip to check out a solar farm. They run out of gas there and have to spend the night out there. The detectives start searching through the boy’s things to try to find any records of the drug money. The only thing they find is a link to a file that isn’t on his computer. Eventually they figure out that it is referring to a level on a video game of his. His little sister helps them get to the level and viola’ there are the records of all the drug transactions. They also found a separate file with the initials of the owner of the store. That’s when they figure out he has both his mom and the boy. Charlie finds them in a bank where he is making them do a wire transfer.So now this has become a mexican standoff of sorts.The swat sniper shoots the suspect and that’s it. By the way check out my last post by clicking here.

Dani Reese starts off this episode with her visit to a bar where she sees a man drinking just like her. It turns out that they were both heading to an AA meeting where he says something that makes it seem like he is a rapist. There seems to be a 911 call where larson was implicated, but later the woman recanted. Then out of nowhere Charlie shows up at the AA meeting. Dana leaves with the Larson. Larson gets angry with her and storms off. They find the previous victim, Nancy, but she refuses to testify. So Charlie and his supervisor are on a stakeout finding nothing. Meanwhile Dani catches Nancy going to shoot Larson. They pull Nancy in and try to talk some sense into her. Larson has disappeared from everywhere. Dani starts looking around AA trying to find Larson. A girl there says she meeting him at a local bar. On the poop stakeout they find out that it was her cameraman pooping on her yard. Charlie has to leave to get to the bar. There they arrest Larson for Nancy’s rape. He says the sex was consensual. They still arrest him. Larson makes bail and goes after Dani. He takes her gun and forces her to drink vodka. She slyly calls Charlie in her pocket, and he along with their supervisor heads to the rescue. They rush in and save the day. Hey check out my last post by clicking here.

This week on life we start out with car wrecked on the side of the road with a woman in it. The woman has been shot by some in the backseat. Charlie wanders around in the woods only to find the husband of the woman out there. It is obvious that he was in the wreck, but he is not in his right mind. He thinks that he is waiting for the valet at a restaurant. When they pull him in for the interview, he seems to have blocked out what happened. It is very interesting to see the amazement he has with modern technology. With a little bit of persuading the husband says he struggled with a carjacker and his wife was shot. So from this point they start to build the time line of the couple on that night using the GPS in the car. The GPS shows that they stopped at a gas station, but the tank of the car was empty. So they go to question the attendant at the gas station. He says they paid for gas but didn’t pump it. He also said that a large latino man with tattoos was around the car. Periodically the show has documentary like interviews about his case. This kind of brings home the facts of the crime he was wrongly convicted for. They find a third set of prints in the car belonging to a Samoan ex-con with a history of carjacking. He has went AWOL on his parole, so Charlie and Dani go hit up his known associates. It turns out that he owes these guys eleven thousand dollars, and they happily tell them where he is at. When they raid his house he hits Crew with a flash bang grenade and starts running. Charlie runs him down, and he pulls a knife on him. He pulls his knife out too creating a stalemate. In the interrogation room he swears the husband shot the wife. So they interview the husband again only to get another story again. This time he gives the full account. The samoan guy tries to carjack them, and the husband tells him that he has ten thousand dollars in a safe at his house. Realizing that their kids are there the wife tries to wrestle the gun away from him. So he shoots her. All that is left is to pin it on the somoan guy. They can’t use the husbands testimony in court because his story has changed so much. This is where his old friends step in and get him to admit it on tape. Check out my last post ‘Impulsive’.

I have to say that the new show, ‘Life’ on NBC, is a breath of fresh air for the crime drama genre. The combination of very sharp writing and an excellent cast makes this show great. I think the premise is great, and this opens the way for many unique situations not available in other crime drama shows. Being a man who was wrongfully convicted of a triple murder, he has a unique take on the crimes. He seems to have a certain empathy for the criminals that stems from the twelve years in prison. This episode starts with a dead bride killed on her wedding night. With a little searching they found the husband drinking himself into stupor by the pool, covered in blood. He says that he found her that way, and then started drinking. When Charlie attempts to put the cuffs on the new widow, they start to fight until they both fall in the pool. They continue fighting underwater until Charlie’s partner Dani zaps the pool with about 900 volts. After the interrogation Charlie decides that he didn’t kill his new wife. They ask the friends about the couple only to be told how great they were together. The attorney for the husband was also a friend of the bride, so when they go to interview him they find a shrine to her thats in the form of a journal with her head on other bodies. The whole time they are conducting the investigation the I.A. is pressuring Dani for dirt on Charlie. Charlie is looking at the photos from the wedding when he has an epiphany. He keeps seeing one of the friends taking pictures in the pictures, but doesn’t have them. When they confront her she spills the beans. Her brother was trying to steal the money gifts from the wedding. The little sister saw him murder her. Another case closed with unique detective work. By the way check out my last link ‘The News’.