New Amsterdam’s Dishy Immortal

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. A lot of name for a lot of guy. Waldau (excuse the lack of hyphen here, but he’s used that lone name in the past) looks at some angles a lot like a young Sean Bean, at others like a clone of Gale Harold. Not bad creds for a man who my eyes tell me will be in the running for People Magazine’s sexiest man award. And, as evidenced in the recent episode, he deserves the title in other ways as well.

John Amsterdam, you see, is looking for the right woman to make him mortal again. I’m not so sure what he finds so bad about being immortal. I’m at that age when my knees hurt, my back hurts and sometimes just getting out of bed in the morning is a challenge. BUT, possibly because of this, I only see immortal life as a plus. But, that’s just me. Maybe after 400 some years, I’d see his point of view.

Now, since he needs the right woman, and since he looks like he does, it seems that he has no trouble scoring – and procreating. Indeed, the inability of Manhattanites to find a parking spot anywhere on their wickedly overcrowded island may be due to John. Meanwhile, he has to take a “wait and see” attitude to know if that one who caught his eye is THE one. So it isn’t just a wham/bam/thank you ma’am. For him it’s relationships. And what does he have but a whole lot of time?

When I first saw the pilot for this series, I liked its darkness, but did not think it would appeal to viewers. It’s a lot lighter now that John’s friends/kids/ex lovers (not sure which the secretary in the last episode was) are entering the picture with some pithy remarks to keep his ego grounded. And thankfully for the series, there was that writer’s strike and it was new – and fresh. And it’s just getting better and better as past and present intersect in each episode.

How long can it hang around? Who knows. But I did observe that Angel and Spike were getting a little long in the tooth by the time Buffy and Angel ended.