2008.09.12

UNDERGROUND PARTY CIRCUIT CLAIMS LIFE OF FAMILY MAN—Charlie Crews (Damian Lewis) and Dani Reese (Sarah Shahi) investigate the death of a family man who is found beaten and bound to a chair at the bottom of an empty pool. Captain Tidwell (Donal Logue) is convinced the murder was an act of gang violence and sends the detectives on assignment. After interviewing the victim’s daughters and two gang members, Crews and Reese’s only clues are an underground party circuit, a bottle of steroids, and a myth about a man only known as Monster. Meanwhile, Ted (Adam Arkin) gets an unexpected visit from Dani’s father who is determined to find out what information Crews has on him and consequently has a request of Ted. Crews also enlists the help of his ex-wife Jennifer (Jennifer Siebel) to reach out to Rachel (Jessy Schram), the lone survivor of the murdered family Crews was wrongly convicted of killing. Brent Sexton also stars.

FOR THE record: “Pushing Daisies,” “Private Practice,” “Dirty Sexy Money,” “Chuck” and “Life” have not been canceled. But it has been a long time — about as long as it takes for a baby to grow in the womb — since Ned the Piemaker, Dr. Addison Montgomery, the Darling family, Chuck Bartowski and Charlie Crews graced your television. Soon, though, these ABC and NBC shows will return for their sophomore seasons…

“We’ve been gone so long that I think people assume that ‘Life’ was canceled,” said executive producer Far Shariat. “So we have a mandate from the network to try to get more people when we come back. We were just starting to get up on our feet after 11 episodes. It’s almost like we’re starting over.”

…And NBC gave “Chuck” and “Life,” which premiere Sept. 29, a boost during its Olympics broadcasts. (“Life” will air for two weeks on Mondays and Fridays and then only on Fridays, beginning Oct. 17.)

Although only 11 episodes of “Life” aired, producers say they feel lucky that they were able to complete Charlie Crews’ (Damian Lewis) journey of finding the man who should have served 12 years in prison instead of him. In the new season, Charlie will continue to fight crime and eat fruit.

“As the revelations of the conspiracy unveiled, the tone was darker than the initial tone of the show,” creator Rand Ravich said. “We’re resetting the tone to where there’s this darkness to Charlie’s back story and there’s darkness in his future, but his day-to-day should be full of life and joy. Prison was such a transcendent experience for Charlie that every day is the first day he stepped back in the sunlight. Then as he steps deeper into the conspiracy, we will find ourselves in a darker place again.”

NBC brought it back for a second try, despite its less than great ratings. That’s a good sign the network has confidence in the show. It’s one of a handful of freshman series from last year that are getting “do overs” and being relaunched this season — shows that got cut short last season by the writers strike…Lewis is terrific, and since they’ve had all these months to figure out what worked on the series and what did not, I’m hoping this season it’s a better series than last season.

» Charlie Crews in “Juicy” by ODsis.

» A new Band of Brothers video called “Memories and Dust” by annakovsky