Life [TV Series] on AllMovie

The NBC cop drama Life was cast in the same mold as Fox's medical series House, in that it was built around a whimsically sarcastic, wittily iconoclastic and thoroughly irreverent anti-hero who rigidly adhered to a Zen-like philosophy in all matters both professional and personal. Damian Lewis starred as convict Charlie Crews, a former police detective serving a life sentence on a triple-homicide charge. Freed from prison after twelve years on the strength new DNA evidence supplied by his loyal attorney Brooke Langton (Contance Griffiths), Charlie was somewhat surprisingly reinstated by the police force, and even given his old job back. As he struggled to catch up with the technological advances of the past dozen years, Charlie also had to adjust himself to his new partner, another "reclamation project" named Dani Reese (Sarah Shawl), who had just overcome a nasty drug habit. Dedicating himself to capturing the person who committed the murders for which he was blamed, and to finding out who framed him and why, Charlie was unaware that Dani was actually a "mole" for his superior officer Lt. Karen Davis (Robin Weigert), who instensely disliked Charlie and had strongarmed Dani into helping her dig up a good excuse to fire him (woven into the series' basic storyline was a sinister, wide-ranging conspiracy which involved a number of characters who would greatly benefit from Charlie's removal--or his death). At least Charlie could count on the friendship and support of former white-collar criminal Ted Earley (Alan Arkin), who lived on the estate Charlie had purchased with his multimillion-dollar legal settlement against the police department, and who owed our hero innumerable favors stemming back to their days behind bars. Others in the cast were Jennifer Siebel as Charlie's ex-wife Jennifer and Brent Sexton as his embittered former partner Bobby Starks. Life was first telecast on September 26, 2007.