Saw New Amsterdam last night, if only because its premise was similar to my novel Scarlet Woman. Mm. Well, it was a little better, and in some ways, a little more wanting than I anticipated. The novelty of casting an actor (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) who was actually, well...Danish (hey, it's close, right?) who learned Knickerbocker English as a second language (as opposed to an actor from, say, Kansas, and then voice coaching them to sound Dutch-New Yorker) was an appealing one: yes, with whiskers he does look like an Old Master painting (or close to), yes, his accent turns some words into melting butter (and has much the same effect on me) and yes, he is as cute as a button and as an older lady, I feel like I could have a chance at him (beside him, all women are younger than springtime). The notion of John staying pretty near New York all his life, and therefore, knowing a great deal of the city's history is appealing, giving the show a Neverwhere touch, as he throws away scraps of his accrued knowlege about wherever he is, among other subjects (watching him smoke a nargile is precious), and taking what I suppose to be an annual photo standing looking south from George M. Cohan's statue on Duffy Square to what is probably to him, still Longacre.
However, one character doesn't make a series, and the writing, I feel was a bit flabby. One example was when he tracks down a mural in a hotel from the 1930's to its artist: his son remarks that his mother was primarily a muralist, "and as such, is counted one of the first graffiti artists". No, not at all. She didn't vandalize existing walls, use spray cans, or champion "street culture", from what I saw: she painted in a wholly classical mode, used rare pigments (including gold dust), and was probably quite well rewarded for her work. (She may have been a Communist sympathizer, but that's another story...) To put it this way, by the criteria they're using, he might as well be saying that Giotto was "a graffiti artist". Another jarring inconsistancy is when he attends an AA meeting, and gives his dry time in terms of days, ending somewhen in 1964: AA is more a cultural artifact than a medical treatment, strongly dependent on pre-existing attitudes about religion and drinking for its utility, and somehow I don't see a 17th century Reformed Dutchman espousing the Temperance/Evangelical base of the Maintenance Movement. Yes, he IS that old, but still...Perhaps I should know better than to expect excellence out of FOX?
The mystery is no better, looking and sounding like a subpar Law & Order episode minus the "Order" part, but with Briscoe given a social-work degree. Enjoy this one while it lasts, kiddies, dream your dreamy dreams, cause this one's going straight to DVD Heaven.