American cop shows are ten-a-penny, thanks to the mega-successful trope set out by CSI and its spin-offs. Because this particular market place is so crowded, I do get the impression that new shows are trying to out-do each other in the quirky stakes just to get noticed. The hope was the Life, airing on NBC in the US, would pack the same punch in terms of crime solving as its procedural contemporaries but different enough to keep people watching. On paper, things looked promising – it stars Damien Lewis (always watchable) a Charlie Crews, a detective who has just got out of prison 12 years into a life sentence for a murder he didn’t commit.

The show starts – and went on to be interspersed with – documentary footage of Charlie’s friends, colleagues and (his now) ex-wife. As Charlie’s horrifying time in jail was described by the talking heads (the beatings and cuttings, all because he was a cop), I thought that this was a very neat trick and an original way to flesh out a character’s back story.

“Life was his sentence and life is what he got back”. That’s what his lawyer said, and very prophetic they were too, because, despite his ordeal, Charlie was back in the force. People seemed to be wanting him to slip up, wanting him to traumatised by his experiences and really wanting him to be after some sort of vengeance.

Not a bit of it. While he was in the clink, Charlie studied Zen Buddhism and whenever things looked like they might get stressful for him, he quoted some calming lines.

That wasn’t all. He was assigned to a new partner – the feisty Dani Rees (Sarah Shahi) – who didn’t take too kindly to her new colleague. Her record in the LAPD was less than exemplary, and she thought the powers-that-be were punishing her by sending in a nutjob for a partner. By the end of the first episode, she realised that Charlie was probably the sanest person out there.

A few other of Charlie’s quirks – he often had a Tourette’s-like ability to inappropriate things to himself (I liked that idea, and thought it was probably the fact that he had spent so much time on his own in prison), he loved fruit and ate it pretty much all the time (I’m sure I’ve seen another character do this in a film or TV show), and he was befuddled by mobile phone and internet technology). It made Charlie to be an interesting character and very watchable.

In the middle of all these getting-to-know-you bits, there was a crime to solve – the murder of a young boy. Dani and Charlie’s investigations took them back to prison where Charlie suffered verbal abuse from the insensitive prison guards who had heard about his past. Charlie, spouting his Zen stuff to help him get through it, did have an advantage while questioning the aggressive father of the boy – because of his own stint behind bars he knew how to handle inmates, and almost thought the way they thought.

A promising start then. If the crime-solving took a back seat this week that’s ok, we were being introduced to the characters and I expect the case to get twistier and turnier. It really reminded me of House, to be honest. It featured the same plinky-plonky, quirky soundtrack and had a left-of-centre at its centre. Except Crews has forgiven and forgotten, while House is still a misanthrope, albeit a very entertaining one.