It was never actually on the air, just more likely to be on the air than to not be on the air

As expected, NBC has cancelled Life officially. As you know, I'm sorry to see it go. It was a good show.

At times like these I try not to rend my garment and curse the names of the television executives (especially when they have the same name as me, like NBC co-chairman Ben Silverman) too much. First because I also try not to expect television executives not to act like television executives (second, because if I did that, I couldn't mock the Whedon-zombies. I like doing that). Life needed a couple of million more viewers a week, and that's all there is to it.

However, where I do feel I have an area of complaint is that from what I saw NBC did almost nothing to promote the series. And Life was a quirky show much more about characters than about procedure which needed a certain amount of, if I may, tending and gardening in the media and press.

In a way the title was a problem--it doesn't exactly tell you what you're going to get, in the way that, say, Dancing With The Stars does--although I suppose you could debate the use of the word "Stars" on that one (and come to think of it, "Dancing").

But at the same time, I can't think of a better one.
And that's what the show was about. Life and how to deal.

The show was "Zen-ish," and part of being "Zen-ish" is to not be attached to things. So how can I be attached to this show?
At least the show existed, and exists, the first season already on DVD (and on my shelf--thank you, Jen) and the second scheduled for release.

It introduced me to Damian Lewis, an actor I'll be looking out for in the future. Lewis's Charlie Crews combined a willful, almost childlike innocence with a Terminator-like search for vengance.



The series showed me that Sarah Shahi, besides being just smokin' hot, could do some really rich acting work as Crews skeptical partner Dani Reese, wracked with troubles of her own.

It missed a few steps this season, but by the end it had found its feet again and landed gracefully. I'm sad to see it go, but at least I have an abiding image to go with it, or that it left me with. It's the two partners looking at each other, as we hear the words on a Zen tape:

'We even have a word when you plus another equals one.
That word is love.'

So if I'm not attached to it, I hope I'm not attached to it, why do I think it's going to stay with me?

A little over four years ago, in a "public service announcement" on my old blog, I said this about CBS’s 1985 revival of Twilight Zone:

I believe you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of television series that were actually important to you. Important, meaning they strongly affected you, changed your conciousness one way or another, even, god help us, taught you lessons.

I've been thinking in recent days about how Life is likely to be another one of those series for me. It's the show that planted the seeds for what I now refer to as "my Buddhism-influenced spiritual inner life." It had an impact on me.

Just how deep that impact goes remains to be seen (check back in 20 years), but it's already deeper than most.