With this fall season being a tough and low-rated one, networks are busy trying to figure out the best mix of shows to deliver the best ratings.  In fact, NBC has gone ahead and tossed around a few shows for their midweek schedules.  They’re tagging their Wednesday nights as crime night, in which they will feature their new lineup composed of Knight Rider, Life and Law and Order’s 19th season, which was originally set to return early next year.

Apparently, the network is treating fans of Law and Order to an early Christmas offering with the premiere of the new season and the rest of the lineup beginning on November 5.

The new schedule will force Lipstick Jungle to move to Fridays beginning October 31, as it trades places with Life, which stars Damian Lewis as Det. Charlie Crews, Sarah Shahi as Dani Reese, Adam Arkin as Ted Earley, Donal Logue as Capt. Kevin Tidwell, Brent Sexton as Off. Bobby Stark, Brooke Langton as Constance Griffiths and Robin Weigert as Lt. Karen Davis.

Life follows the adventures of Charlie Crews, who was wrongly convicted for a crime he did not commit.  Following 12 years in prison, he is released and is left to find his way back to normalcy, with the stigma of having gone to jail for over a decade.

"You can't be sent away to prison for life and feel OK about it," Damian Lewis, who plays Crews, told TV Guide.  Nonetheless, he says that Crews "delights in every new experience. He has already experienced so much terror in his life that everything fascinates him in a childlike way."

Moreover, Lewis points out that "It's important to remember that Charlie is a little cracked.  His eccentric tendencies are a result of his experiences.  He wasn't like that before."

He adds that this season of Life “goes even more into a comic book or graphic novel kind of [direction] – the way the bad guys aren't just bad guys, they're villains; the girls aren't just girls, they're like molls, dames."

Lewis promises that the series will allow viewers to "live in that fantasy world a bit more."

Catch this week’s episode of Life, which airs this Friday, October 31 at 10pm, before it moves to the Wednesday timeslot on November 5.


-Valerie Anne del Castillo, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: TV Guide, Zap2It
(Photo courtesy of NBC)