I'm going to talk about the show New Amsterdam. Specifically, why I am not going to watch New Amsterdam any more.

On the plus side, he wears awesome three-piece suits.




If you’ve been following the show, you already know it’s about a guy (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) who’s immortal and who currently works as a homicide detective. He has a sassy lady cop sidekick, an ancient bartender/son, and a cute dog who I believe he just calls “36,” presumably in reference to however many dogs he’s had in his long, long life. He won’t be free of immortality until he finds true love, or something. (I don’t know. That part’s still being hashed out. He seems to have found the girl and she’s into him. Do they need to have sex? Get married? Does she actually have to pull the trigger?) In the meantime he solves crimes and forces us through ridiculous flashbacks that usually involve some sort of facial hair.

The best thing about the show, that kept me interested for three whole episodes (I missed the one they unexpectedly ran last week), is that he tells the truth. When asked if he’s ever been married, he says 7 or 8 times. When asked if he thinks about changing careers, he says about every 10 years. When asked why he knows so much arcane crap about New York, he says it’s because he was there. This is kind of fun.

However, I’m giving it up. I don’t normally get offended at my TV (except at bad writing), but I can’t understand half of what Amsterdam says. This accent is… inexplicable. The best I can describe is that it’s early Marlon Brando/Eastern European/Southern gentleman/Brooklyn old-timer. I just can’t understand him. I can only imagine how tough he is to comprehend without our 5.1 surround sound.

IMDB tells me the actor is Danish. That explains it a little bit. But it still does not explain why Amsterdam, the character, has such a bizarre accent. He is nice to look at, don’t get me wrong. But that's just not enough to keep me tuned in.

Basically, I’m over all this new stuff. I just want the old shows back again.