The new midseason replacement New Amsterdam boasted an interesting, if unoriginal, premise—a New York City detective, John Amsterdam, hides a secret of immortality while solving homicides. It sounded similar to the recent vampire-solving-crimes show, but I figured it was still worthy of checking out. Perhaps there’d be a magic sword or superpowers or intellect learning along the way. Maybe it would even mimic one of the coolest shows on television, Heroes, finding others who were roaming the earth for centuries.

 

I was wrong. Somewhere in the process, New Amsterdam got saddled with romantic and buddy-cop overtones. Centuries ago, John, a Dutch soldier with a glued on mustache and beard, darted in front of a sword to protect a Native American girl during a massacre. The girl cast some sort of spell on him not only saving his life, but also giving him many, many more years of walking the earth until he finds “the one.” And then he’d start aging after he found her (insert wife jokes here).

 

In present day, John is a no-nonsense instinct-driven New York cop who, in the premiere episode, gets a new partner (naturally). At this point, the show quickly turns into your typical Bones-type crime-solving show, except John occasionally will remind viewers how old he is. Others assume he’s kidding when he says he’s been sober since 1964, and you almost expect him to turn and wink to the camera when he says “I look young for my age.” We get it. You’re old.

 

We also get a Somewhere in Time moment when John visits an elderly artist suffering with Alzheimer’s who still manages to recognize him from an earlier romance. Nothing is explained and John just stares at the poor old woman with an icy glare while she questions why he left her. At this point, a flashback to John leading the country to victory in World War II would have at least kept the viewers from thinking he’s just a love-‘em-and-leave-’em player, breaking the hearts of women who turn into lonely little old ladies.

 

But perhaps John leaves because he is on mission, to solve crimes. No wait, he’s on two missions—first, to find his true love and second to solve crimes. Which begs the question: If you were really looking for your true love and the chance to age gracefully, why pick a career where the people you meet are either riddled with bullets or the ones holding the guns?

 

To be fair, this is all about the pilot episode, so perhaps the show can grow from here. It might take some time-traveling ninjas or a magic sword or superpowers. It’ll certainly take more than staring at corpses, exchanging barbs with his partner and attending AA meetings. For a show about a man who can’t age, it sure gets old quick.