A sign of 'Life' on NBC: a potentially great show

NBC's new drama "Life" is the sort of show that makes a person want to write things that will be picked up for ad copy. Like: "If you only watch one new show this fall, watch 'Life.' " Or: "Terrific cast, terrific writing, and even when simply eating a pear, Damian Lewis sets a whole new standard for the broken hero genre." Not for the ad, but because they're true. And since "Life" has gotten zero buzz, there's a chance it will have a hard time finding an audience. Which would be terrible, since it promises to be such a great show.

This despite its obviously derivative nature: Writer Rand Ravich has created the latest "Monk" by way of "House." "Life" follows the strange and painful tale of LAPD detective Charlie Crews. Twelve years ago, Charlie was convicted of a gruesome triple homicide and sentenced to life. Only he didn't do it, see, as his heroic and lovely attorney Constance (Brooke Langton) proved. So now Crews is a free man, or as free as he can be after all the physical and psychological damage done to him in prison, with a $50-million settlement and a chance to return to the force as a detective.

But that psychological damage is pretty extensive, with the result that Crews is more than a bit strange. Brilliant but strange. "Did you ask the dog?" he asks with an owl-like tilt of his head when officers are looking for a bullet at a crime scene. And, of course, the dog knows.

With the watchful half-smile and soft monotone of a psychopath and the sudden, stilted movements of a space alien, Crews is no sharp-tongued misanthrope or lovable neurotic. He's just Zen to the point of disassociation. "You don't have to understand here to be here," he tells his new partner, Dani (Sarah Shahi), who is teamed with Crews partly as punishment for past drug abuse.

Playing it long and lugubrious but with a tantalizing twinkle, Lewis (last seen in the States as the hateful husband in "The Forsyte Saga") may well wrest the mantle of sexiest troubled American played by a Brit away from Hugh Laurie. Like House, Crews has been damaged by the profession he serves; like House, he sees things that other people miss. But Crews is working toward transformation. His serenity, however, is obviously self-imposed and at times, barely there, a thin mask of hard-won wisdom veiling the pain and anger within.

"Don't you have anything better to do?" asks the husband of Crews' ex-wife after Crews has pulled him over, yet again, for some minor traffic infraction.