Past Life – A First Look

PAST LIFE

The premise of Past Life is around the idea that the memories of a previous life are interfering with the present.  This new drama series investigates the world of the unexplained through the eyes of a doctor and a former detective who must work together to solve decades-old mysteries.  Sound familiar?  I’m hard pressed to find a lot of differences between CBS’s most likely to conclude series Cold Case and this one.  Even the lead blonde looks semi-familiar.

Cold Case or Past Life?

I’m enjoying the show, but it really seems like another CBS clone as was Lie To Me.  The first episode revolves around a teenage boy who suddenly remembers flashes of his past life where he was murdered.  Of course only flashes are there or this all would be too easy to resolve.  Now the idea is to bring the boy and find the scene of the crime so that he can properly remember things and have all of the images stop.

Case #2 revolves around a young woman who is having images of a dead woman and it’s causing her to overdose on drugs of choice.  While the cast is decent and the stories well done, you still have the feeling that you’ve seen this done again and again on CBS.   The second story even more than the first one was so reminiscent of Cold Case with the ending song and flashes to all of the people involved.  (All that was missing was the flashes of images of the characters from then to now.)

This might be a show worth checking out on occasion, especially when Cold Case concludes (although the coveted advertising demo for that show skewed older than anyone at FOX would be interested in), so one has to think that Past Life will not have much of a future, especially considering it’s up against CSI, The Office and Grey’s Anatomy.

SERIES PREVIEW:				Tuesday, Feb. 9 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT)
SERIES PREMIERE:				Thursday, Feb. 11 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT)
STARRING:				Kelli Giddish (Dr. Kate McGinn) Nicholas Bishop (Price Whatley) Richard Schiff (Dr. Malachi Talmadge) Ravi Patel (Dr. Rishi Karna)