How do you create a detective who knows everything? Easy – make him immortal. That is exactly the case with John Amsterdam (played by Dutch actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), the New York homicide detective at the center of Fox’s new drama “New Amsterdam.”
Blessed by a shaman in colonial America after saving the life of a young Native American girl, Amsterdam is destined to live without aging or dying until he meets the one woman he is destined to be with. It’s best to abandon all reason and accept this slightly ridiculous premise. Once you get past the cheese factor, “Amsterdam” actually works.
In a pleasantly retro fashion, Amsterdam behaves like the hard-boiled detectives popular during the 1920s and ’30s. He is cool, cocky and tough (enough), and the man gets around – he’s gone through 602 girlfriends during his extended lifespan.
Amsterdam also doesn’t show much emotion. He is clearly a damaged character, having lived to witness the deaths of so many people close to him, but hints of that heartache merely flicker on his surface from time to time. Like a true hard-boiled detective, Amsterdam keeps his emotions to himself. This begs the question: Is Amsterdam really upset that he can’t die? And if he isn’t upset, then why does he want so badly to find his true love and become mortal? Hints at sadness aren’t enough to convince.
“New Amsterdam”
| What: | Fox’s new drama, set in current day New York, about a man who became immortal almost 400 years ago in colonial America. |
| Who: | Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Zuleikha Robinson and Stephen Henderson |
| When: | Mondays at 9 p.m. on Fox |
| Rating: | 4 stars out of 5 |
But unlike most hard-boiled detectives, Amsterdam solves his crimes through centuries worth of accumulated knowledge. In the years he’s been alive, he has learned to read lips, decipher code and… make tables. He has been a soldier, an artist and a lawyer. Name it, and Amsterdam has probably done it. This endless fountain of knowledge and experience becomes a little too convenient at times, but “CSI” proved that shows full of know-it-alls can still be compelling.
Amid all the love-searching and crime-solving, Amsterdam has two sidekicks who stand as the voice of reason in his centuries-old world. Zuleikha Robinson plays Eva Marques, Amsterdam’s new partner at work, and while she appears mannish and abrasive at first, her soft side eventually comes through and she and Amsterdam are able to connect as co-workers. She has never met Amsterdam before working with him, so she comes at him with a fresh perspective, unaware that he is immortal. If Amsterdam acts strangely or out of line, Marques is there to question his actions.
Omar (played by Stephen Henderson), on the other hand, is a bartender and 65-year-old son of Amsterdam’s who knows his secret. When Amsterdam rattles on and on about the shaman’s prophecy, Omar pipes in with a much-needed “What the hell does that mean?” Omar’s brutal honesty comes at the best possible times – when the show threatens to delve too deeply into the metaphysical. This grounds the show in reality as much as is possible with a show about immortality.
But after almost 400 years of immortality, how is Amsterdam’s curse/blessing still a secret? One has to wonder how Amsterdam has managed to live in New York for centuries without anyone noticing that he doesn’t age. That question is bound to be answered eventually, as each episode unfolds a little bit more of Amsterdam’s rich backstory. In fact, the show is almost more compelling when looking backward then it is when Amsterdam is solving a present-day crime. Nonetheless, “Amsterdam” weaves an intriguing and effective drama, even if immortality isn’t exactly a new concept.
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