Television series

Life

Name: Life
Genre: Drama, Crime
Released: 2007
Cast: Damian Lewis, Sarah Shahi, Adam Arkin, Brent Sexton, Donal Logue

Other titles called Life: the 2009 series (BBC One), the 2017 film.

Life follows Charlie Crews, an LAPD detective returning to the job after twelve years in prison for a murder he didn't commit, now solving cases with unnerving calm and a bag of fruit. It's a case-of-the-week procedural on the surface, but underneath sits real strangeness — Zen koans, buried rage, a conspiracy simmering all season. Damian Lewis is riveting: gentle, funny, faintly terrifying.

TVMaze rating

4.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like police procedurals where the case of the week is a vehicle for a wry, slightly off-kilter hero who notices things others miss, and you enjoy the buddy-cop rhythm between two very different partners.

Skip it if you want the crime to stay firmly in the foreground, since the show leans on its lead's odd sense of humor and his long, bitter grievance more than on tight, gripping mysteries.

What it asks of you: Settle in for an hour a week across two seasons and roughly thirty-two episodes, with a tone that swings between dry comedy and a quietly heavy sense of injustice.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Monk2002

Adrian Monk is another gifted, broken detective solving a murder-of-the-week while chasing the one case that actually matters to him — his wife's death. Same rhythm: light procedural front, aching mystery underneath, held together by an odd, magnetic lead.

But Gentler and jokier than Life — more sitcom-adjacent, less menace, less willingness to sit in silence.

Person of Interest2011

A near-unreadable, quietly damaged ex-operative works cases alongside a growing conspiracy that eventually swallows the whole show. If you liked Crews's stillness and the slow-burn mythology, this scratches the same itch with sharper genre teeth.

But Tips further into sci-fi surveillance-thriller territory than Life ever does — more plot machine, less character study.

Bosch2015

Harry Bosch is obsessive, humourless, allergic to closing a case the easy way — a more conventional cousin to Crews's justice fixation, minus the Zen koans. Excellent, unglamorous LA detective work, season after season.

But Plays it straight where Life goes strange — no eccentricity, no dark comedy, just committed procedural craft.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Life

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Call Northside 7771948

Life's whole premise — an innocent man destroyed by the system, freed by new evidence — is this film's plot exactly, told sixty years earlier as unglamorous journalistic procedural instead of stylish network drama.

A hard-nosed Chicago reporter digs up new evidence to free a man wrongly imprisoned for murder, filmed in stark, semi-documentary black and white decades before this became a genre unto itself.

But A period piece with 1940s pacing and no interest in psychology — pure investigative machinery, not character study.

Justified2010

Raylan Givens is another wry, dangerous lawman who talks softly and means every word, dropped into a world of brilliantly written criminals. The pleasure is tonal — cool, funny, violent, never quite predictable.

But Rural noir, not urban procedural — a different setting and rhythm entirely, more novelistic than case-driven.

Terriers2010

A cancelled-too-soon gem about two scruffy unlicensed PIs stumbling into a conspiracy far bigger than their day-to-day cases. Shares Life's mix of melancholy, dry humour, and a hero who's already lost everything once.

But Only one season exists, ending on real, unresolved momentum — frustrating if you want closure.

Veronica Mars2004

Teen noir with a running season-long mystery under a case-of-the-week format, narrated by someone smarter and angrier than everyone around her. The structural bones are close to Life's, just younger and snappier.

But Far lighter and more teen-drama than Life's adult menace, especially in the earlier seasons.

Elementary2012

Jonny Lee Miller plays a Sherlock rebuilding himself after addiction and disgrace, solving cases with the same unnerving precision Crews brings to a crime scene. A long-running procedural for anyone missing that lead-actor oddness.

But Far more conventional in structure — seven seasons of reliable mystery-of-the-week with much less serialized darkness.

Longmire2012

Walt Longmire is a stoic Wyoming sheriff carrying private grief into every investigation, cases resolving neatly while his own story moves slower underneath. Same slow-burn-under-procedural structure, different landscape entirely.

But Much quieter and more traditional — no dark humour, no eccentricity, just a sturdy western procedural.

The Killing2011

One murder stretched taut across an entire season, investigated by two detectives falling apart in different ways. If you want Life's mood — rain, grief, damaged people doing a hard job — minus the humour.

But Much heavier and slower, with almost none of Life's wit or strangeness to lighten the load.

After Innocence2005

Charlie Crews's fruit-obsessed strangeness and flat affect are played for character; this film shows what that disorientation actually looks like in real exonerees, stripped of procedural comfort.

A documentary following real men exonerated by DNA evidence after years or decades in prison, tracking the bewildering, often unsupported process of rebuilding an ordinary life on the outside.

But No plot momentum or catharsis to lean on — just real, unresolved grief and bureaucratic failure, hard to watch as entertainment.

Kung Fu1972

The same Zen-koan cadence Charlie Crews uses to unsettle everyone around him, relocated a century earlier and a genre over — proof the serene-stranger-fixes-a-broken-case engine long predates this show.

A wandering Shaolin monk drifts through the Old West doling out calm, cryptic wisdom and the occasional beating, solving each episode's trouble through patience rather than force. Odd, gentle, deeply of its era.

But Glacial pacing by modern standards, and the show's central casting choice hasn't aged well at all.