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An immortal detective gives life to 'New Amsterdam'

BY DIANE WERTS | diane.werts@newsday.com

4:26 PM EST, March 2, 2008

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NEW AMSTERDAM. A cop called Amsterdam works as a current-day New York homicide detective, despite being killed 400 years ago in the city of that name. He's immortal! (And lovesick.) NYC-filmed drama series previews tonight and Thursday night at 9, moves to regular time next Monday at 9 on Fox.

While I'm always a sucker for your basic immortal/vampire/space alien saga, I'm also a skeptic. It isn't so simple for me to watch something like this week's quite fine immortal-homicide-detective drama "New Amsterdam." Yes, this Fox series is smartly written and acted, and it's even evocatively filmed in New York locations that lend it a gritty city flavor.

But.

But.

How does 400-year-old original Dutch settler turned present-day sleuth John Amsterdam get such a prime police gig? How'd he get a Social Security number? And wouldn't he need a new one every 30 years or so since he never ages? How often does he have to change jobs/identities so no one notices? And how come no seniors from the "old" life ever recognize this hot young stud as somebody who looked exactly the same a half-century back?

At least the folks behind "New Amsterdam" are savvy enough to right away address that last one. Amsterdam, in the person of "Black Hawk Down" actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, does get spotted in tonight's pilot by somebody he knew way back when, one of the former "609 girlfriends" that his new partner (Zuleikha Robinson, "The Lone Gunmen") thinks he's joking about. But the old flame is an Alz.heimer's patient, so who believes her? Over on CBS' "Moonlight," the vampire lead's longtime police pal has conveniently gone blind so as not to notice his friend's ever-youthful appearance. But wouldn't you think his voice and physical fitness might give him away?

Sorry, can't help thinking about these things, even as "New Amsterdam" presents us with all kinds of time-tripping pleasures. John makes reference to the archaic likes of 1900 stage diva Sarah Bernhardt. ("She's that lesbian comic?" responds the standard dense fellow copper.) He knows how to tango entirely too well. His vote for best invention of his lifetime goes to indoor plumbing. And the sobriety record he proclaims at alcoholics' meetings is 15,495 days, which means this 30-something dude stopped drinking before he was "born."

Best of all, John (or Charlie, as the Alzheimer's babe knew him) is a master carpenter who makes new "antique" desks anytime he needs a few (big) bucks. And he makes them in a secret lair. Accessed by a secret passage behind his buddy's bar. "I remember when Thelonious Monk bought one of your desks," muses aging pal Omar (Stephen Henderson) in another moment of giddy nostalgia.

"New Amsterdam" can pull it off, though, along with pretty nifty mystery in the pilot (directed by Lasse Hallström), where layers upon layers of clues weave themselves around John's past. Less persuasively entwined is a heavy-handed romance whodunit, by which the only way our hero, saved from his 17th century death by a Native American spell, can finally age and die is to find his one true eternal soul mate. After he collapses when a woman brushes by him in the subway, John arises determined to locate his mystery love.

Please. Earlier, John had begun a statement with an ironic "when you've lived here as long as I have" -- meaning, of course, a loooong time -- and this twist makes me want to edit it to "when you've watched as much TV as I have." Then the lovesick swoon is a bit much. Better to just go with the crime-solving and the anachronisms, plus the ever-more-suspicious partner and a parade of, um, much younger girlfriends. Coster-Waldau may be appealingly achy, but he doesn't convey quite enough well-worn soulfulness to sell lines like, "If I can find her, it'll all have value."

Besides, I see he's got a dog, which sets me thinking. How many dogs you think this immortal guy has had? Let's see, 400 years divided by ...

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