Immortal cop walks unusual beat in new Fox drama

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Talk about a guy with a past. John Amsterdam is a New York homicide detective who has more baggage than an LAX carousel. For one, he has been around for about 400 years, give or take. His secret: immortality. It's tough because you watch your friends, lovers and kids all grow old and die while you remain forever young. But think of the frequent-flyer miles he's racked up.

This is the familiar, somewhat contrived but still intriguing premise of "New Amsterdam," a Fox drama that gets the double-barreled sneak preview treatment after "American Idol" on Tuesday and Thursday. It pretty much guarantees a hefty sampling for an hour whose leads break from the starting gate with what has to be the most difficult-to-spell pair of names in primetime history: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Zuleikha Robinson. Both are really attractive, if not necessarily blessed with knockout chemistry.

Amsterdam (Coster-Waldau, who looks something like Jason Bateman's more-dashing brother) was a Dutch soldier who in 1642 stepped in front of a sword to save the life of a Native American girl during a massacre of her tribe. She thanked him by conferring upon him a spell that keeps him alive and ageless until he finds "The One," i.e. his soulmate.

One might imagine that this will keep him in mortal fear of falling in love, and indeed it isolates him something awful. Perhaps inevitably, he becomes a homicide detective, one with a sassy mismatched partner named Eva Marquez (Robinson). He gets to say stuff like, "You sound just like my 609 other girlfriends." John has one confidant: club owner Omar (Stephen McKinley-Henderson).

It almost comes crashing down in the opener when our never-say-die hero collapses in a heap after eyeing a doctor (Alexie Gilmore) whom we're led to believe could well be "The One." It's odd, of course, because for nearly four centuries doctors are the one thing he hasn't had a use for.

The premiere teleplay from Christian Taylor does a capable, if slightly workmanlike, job. Coster-Waldau paints a beguiling portrait of a brooding, conflicted, undeniably charismatic soul. His character is the second ageless protagonist to surface this season -- the other being private eye/vampire on CBS' freshman drama "Moonlight."

Cast:

John Amsterdam: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

Eva Marquez: Zuleikha Robinson