My first thought when thinking about New Amsterdam is “please don’t let this show be doomed because it’s on FOX.” My second one is, “They’ve already screwed it around by delaying it, it was just filler for the writer’s strike, and it’s probably already doomed.” I would love to see where it’s ranking in the Nielsen ratings. Which, according to Zap2it it’s number 6 out of 20, a strong showing for FOX considering it’s not American Idol.

Now, I watch this from my DVR, which probably doesn’t help any, but I don’t really want to see ads for the aforementioned American Idol either. The show, in my opinion, is strong enough that I’m anxious to get the story moved on, and it’s even thrown in a nice little cliffhanger while we’re only on episode three.

The story is about John Amsterdam, age 365, who came to the colony of New Amsterdam 1642. In return for risking his life to save an indigenous Native American woman he was given immortality until his soul is married to that of his soul mate. He has seen New Amsterdam grow into the thriving city of New York and honed many skills over the years. He’s worked primarily in law enforcement, either behind the badge or in the courtroom (at least as far as I can tell having seen three episodes.) Few know of his secret, but he’s not real shy about saying he did something over 300 years ago that most around him take as simple sarcasm.

The character of John Amsterdam (played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is every bit as intriguing as Forever Knight’s Nicholas Knight (Geraint Wyn Davies) without the hang-ups about blood sucking and melancholy. And comparisons can’t help but be made between the two shows, especially with the main character being a good standing detective. I’ll go out on a limb and say that if you liked Forever Knight there’s a very good chance you would enjoy New Amsterdam. The show is very well pieced together to include modern day happenings intermingled with Amsterdam’s past, but there’s no jerkiness involved with going between the two. Instead you get a great deal of relevancy to the current issue at hand.

Give it a shot, I think you would enjoy it and it’s definitely an enjoyable hour to be lost. You can catch it Monday nights at 8 central on FOX and here’s hoping they don’t screw it like they tried to do Firefly.

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