Life, But Not As We Know It

I’ve been watching the US police drama, Life, on ITV3, probably the only programme I’ve ever watched on that channel.  We’re getting towards the end of the second, and final, season of the series, so I thought I’d offer a few thoughts.

Life is the story of Charlie Crews, a cop who was wrongly convicted of murder and imprisoned for 12 years.  After winning his appeal, he is released with a multi-million dollar settlement and a detective’s shield.  He and new partner (and recovering drug and alcohol addict), Dani Reese (Sarah Shahi), investigate homicides, whilst Crews pursues a personal crusade in to the conspiracy that framed him for murder.

It’s essentially a police procedural with a twist.  The central performance, by British actor Damian Lewis, is key to the show, and he gives Crews a distinctive personality, with his love of fresh fruit and his zen-like attitude to life.  Season 1 was certainly more quirky, with Crews being much more odd, and Reese having a much darker side.  They seemed to clean things up for season 2, presumably to boost ratings, significantly with Reese  wearing her hair down for work, when in the first season it was always up.  It sounds trivial, but it was a very telling note on the tone of the show.  That said, it’s remained different enough to keep me watching, as I don’t usually watch straight cop shows.

With the basics out of the way, let’s get down to the thing that obsesses me every time I watch it: Sarah Shahi’s face.  Now, I know that US TV is notorious for casting attractive people, but Shahi is so insanely beautiful that it dominates my viewing experience.  I’m not criticising her performance as she is very good in the role, but I just cannot accept that she could ever end up being a police officer looking that good.  Now that Life has been cancelled, I can only hope that she gets work soon, hopefully in a show about lingerie models.

p.s.

Between writing this post and publishing it I watched the episode Hit Me Baby.  Reese showed up at a crime scene with noticeably straightened hair and more glamorous make up.  She looked like she was going on a night out rather than investigating a murder (she did look very pretty though).  Perhaps the ratings were really flagging at this point, although, mysteriously,  she was only in the episode for about 2 minutes.