History Main / Life

* The drama about James Dean starring Creator/RobertPattinson and Creator/DaneDeHann - ''Film.{{Life 2015}}''

* The [=NBC=] Live Action Series - ''Series.{{Life}}''
* The {{Shoujo}} manga by Keiko Suenobu - ''Manga.{{Life}}''

There are several works with the title ''Life''.

* The Eddie Murphy film - ''Film.{{Life 1999}}''

* ''VideoGame/TheGameOfLife'' (John Conway's zero-player computer "game")
* The boardgame ''Life'', also known as ''The Game of Life''

* The webcomic about a woman called Felicia - ''Webcomic.{{Life}}''

None of these are to be confused with RealLife or LifeForce.

* The Discovery Channel/BBC documentary ''Life'' with narration by DavidAttenborough

* The Eddie Murphy film - ''Film.{{Life}}'' 1999

There are several works with the title ''Life''. Are you looking for:

* ''TheGameOfLife'' (John Conway's zero-player computer "game")

* The Eddie Murphy film - ''Film/{{Life}}'' 1999

* The [=NBC=] Live Action Series - ''Series/{{Life}}''

* The [=NBC=] Live Action Series - ''Series/{{Life}}

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nbc_life.jpg

-->"Are you making fun of me?"\\
"It's the universe that is making fun of us all."
--->...
-->"Why would the universe make fun of us?"\\
"I don't know. Maybe it's insecure."

Officer Charlie Crews was WronglyAccused of murder and spent twelve years in prison before being exonerated by DNA evidence. Now, back as a detective, he's trying to figure out who actually killed his business partner and family and why he was sent away.

There are a [[TheExoticDetective few things notable]] about ''{{Life}}'': in prison, Crews found ''The Path to Zen'' and thus, as a result of long years of (a) being in prison while (b) studying Zen philosophy on his own and (c) having the crap beaten out of him by other inmates has come out a cross between a {{Cloudcuckoolander}}, a DefectiveDetective, and a CowboyCop; to top it off Crews won a huge lawsuit against the police department, so he's basically a [[TheyFightCrime crime-solving]] EccentricMillionaire.

Other characters include Dani Reese (his alcoholic ex-drug addict partner), Ted Early (his financial advisor, roommate, and prison friend), Constance Griffiths (his lawyer and with whom he shares UnresolvedSexualTension), Karen Davis (his captain), Bobby Stark (his former partner from before he was convicted) and Brian Tidwell as the second season's commanding officer.

Not to be confused with RealLife, or LifeForce, or TheGameOfLife (John Conway's zero-player computer "game"), or the board game Life (where does this article entry go?), or the Eddie Murphy movie ''{{Film/Life}}'', or the DiscoveryChannel/BBC nature documentary miniseries ''Life'', or the {{manga}} series ''Manga/{{Life}}'', or Life cereal, or LIFE Magazine.

-->"We have to use his strength against him."\\
"What's his strength?"\\
"His weakness."\\
"[[IceCreamKoan His strength is his weakness?]]"\\
"Yeah, it's like the one-handed clap."\\
"Are you really Zen?"\\
"Zen-ish."

----
!!This series provides examples of:

* ActionGirl: Dani, Seever to a lesser extent.
* ADayInTheLimelight: Bobby gets an in-universe example in "Hit Me Baby" and "Shelf Life", when Dani leaves for a short-term gig with the FBI. Charlie requests him as a temporary partner until a replacement detective is found. Subverted from an audience perspective, since Bobby ends up not contributing much to the first case and plays a similar role to his usual in the second half of the episode. He's there more in "Shelf Life" but still not as important as Dani.
* ADeathInTheLimelight: Subverted. He's poisoned and almost impaled, but gets better.
* AgentMulder: Charlie, sort of. Although he doesn't believe in everything, he acts very mystic and cryptic most of the time. Interestingly enough, though, Dani ''isn't'' an AgentScully
* ArbitrarilyLargeBankAccount: Charlie can buy pretty much whatever he wants on a whim. Justified, since he earned it serving a lot of years for a crime he didn't commit.
* [[AreYouPonderingWhatImPondering Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering]]: Deliberately invoked by Crews.
-->'''Tidwell:''' Are you thinking about what I'm thinking about?\\
'''Crews:''' Reese [[ShowerScene in the shower]]? No.
* TheAtoner: Kyle Hollis who thought he "got right" [[spoiler: and ended up raised the surviving daughter of the family he murdered as her loving father]]
* AutopsySnackTime: Linda Park's coroner character in "5 Quarts" is constantly eating.
* BadBoss: Roman.
* BadassBiker: Double-subverted with William Ford in "I Heart Mom." He's an [[AllBikersAreHellsAngels outlaw biker]] who wears angora sweaters and runs an antique shop, but is still quite capable of acting the brutal gangster when messed with.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: "Do you know how I survived twelve years in prison?"
* BigBad: Roman.
* TheBigBoard: Charlie's conspiracy board.
* BittersweetEnding: "Canyon Flowers". The killer is caught but the identity of a serial killer's grandson is leaked to the public turning his life into a media circus and causing his girlfriend to break up with him.
** In his first appearance, Roman gets away because of his powerful connections with law enforcement and the husband of the woman he killed finds out she never loved him but at least her fellow "Natasha" is able to leave behind her sordid past life.
* BuddyCopShow: Subverted, Crews and Reese are definitely not close off-duty. Or on duty.
** Though they have an increasingly symbiotic relationship over the course of the show, and they clearly take their partnership seriously. They care about each other quite a bit though.
** Crews and Bobby seemed to have had this kind of partnership in the back-story. He's one of the few people from Charlie's old life who ''never'' denounced him (including his wife). As a result, Bobby spent several years as a pariah within the department and may have stalled his career permanently.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: Charlie again; he acts very weird at times, but his time in prison also made him an extremely good investigator.
** Seever is a cop who is also a lawyer, which means she often ends up talking about the legal aspects of a case in the middle of the investigation.
* CainAndAbel: Though it isn't revealed until the season 2 finale, [[spoiler:Crews and Roman. Crews was being set up so he'd fall in with the conspiracy and become an heir, of sorts. Roman ''wanted'' to be the favored son.]]
* CanYouHearMeNow: Played with during the first season. Charlie has trouble figuring out how to work a cell phone. He's more proficient during season two, but most investigation-related calls still go to his partner.
* CatchPhrase: "Is that zen?"
* CharacterDevelopment: Charlie couldn't seem to complete ''any'' interaction without saying something zennishly absurd in the first season, but by the second he could hold well-reasoned, focused conversations. Considering the zen was implied to be a crutch for holding back his darkness, it seems time has allowed him to put some of the darkness behind him. By the end of the series he's genuinely quirky rather than possibly crazy.
* ChristmasEpisode: Crews and Reese investigate a mall murder on BlackFriday (thus averting the ThanksgivingEpisode). Crews actually lampshades how early they are for Christmas
* ClearMyName: In a rare example, the accused has ''already'' been cleared. Legally, at least.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Mentioned above, but here's a classic {{Lampshad|ed}}ing at the wake of a murder victim.
-->'''Charlie:''' I'd like to come to my own wake.\\
'''Dani:''' But then you'd be dead.\\
'''Charlie:''' Except for that part. Just to see who'd show up, see what they'd say. Pretty girls in black dresses...weeping quietly in small groups. Or all by themselves...\\
'''Dani:''' Lemme know when you touch down.
* ConvictedByPublicOpinion: and in real life as well.
* CreatorProvincialism: One episode had characters say that a local mall was the ''n''th largest in the world, with all their suggestions being within the top ten. No American malls were in the top ten largest in the world during the years of the show's run.
* CowboyCop: Charlie again, sort of
* CrimeTimeSoap: Sure, there are cases, but there's also Charlie's and Dani's personal lives.
** The [[{{Quotes/Life}} dinner scene]] from "Evil...and His Brother Ziggy" may be the most hilarious example.
* DaChief: Lieutenant Karen Davis. [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Replaced]] in season 2 by Capt. Brian Tidwell, played by Donal Logue. (Slight subversion of the SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute in that Davis is demoted to Sergeant, but still appears on the show.)
* TheDanza: Charlie's ex-wife, Jennifer Conover, is played by Jennifer Siebel.
* DeathGlare: "You want to help us." "Why?" "Because I'm three seconds away from deciding I don't like you."
* DirtyCop: Practically everyone, it seems.
* DisproportionateRetribution: "3 Women". An ex-con is framed for murder because he stopped writing his pen pal after getting out of prison.
* DissonantSerenity: Charlie, unless he's on the trail of the people who framed him.
* DynamicEntry: In "One", Charlie does this with ''a car''.
* EpiphanicPrison: "Not for Nothing".
* EveryoneIsASuspect
* EvilCounterpart: To some extent, Roman for Crews.
** Kyle Hollis, the man who killed the Seybolts. He and Crews both found some sort of spiritual awakening. Crews wants to [[ClearMyName clear his name]] while Hollis is TheAtoner.
* EvilGloating: Not too often, but the hitwoman in one episode spends awhile describing the course a poison will take, enough time that she's interrupted before she can deliver a killing blow.
* FauxDocumentary: Season 1 had a series of short clips presented as talking-head interviews between various minor supporting characters and an unseen interviewer. They're absent in the second season until the beginning of the series finale.
* FairCop: Dani. It's even more noticeable in season 2, where she starts wearing her hair down. Also, Seever.
** Crews, as well.
* FishOutOfWater: Crews, having spent the last 12 years in prison, is woefully unprepared for all the newfangled technology that's sprung up.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Seever drops the statistic that 97% of cops never fire their guns off the range.
** In the season one finale, Mark Rawls says to Crews that it 'feels like earthquake weather'. Next season, in the episode where Rawls next appears, there is an earthquake.
** Ted says he couldn't go back to jail, and Charlie reassures him "no one is going back to jail, Ted". Naturally, by the end of the episode, one of them is framed and arrested.
** In episode 2, Charlie kept saying he is not attached to his beautiful car. In the end, Ted runs it over with a tractor.
* FiveBadBand: {{Deconstructed}} in "Everything… All the Time".
** Benny the PluckyComicRelief makes Patrick laugh but knows he's weak and Patrick's right to not trust him.
** Marty TheBrute is actually childish and looks up to Patrick.
** Annabelle the DarkMistress hates Patrick and wants to get away from him.
** Patrick the BigBad envies Benny because [[IJustWantToBeNormal "Everyone knows who he is but no one knows who I am"]].
** The psychiatrist thinks she is their TeamMom but as Crews puts it, she's just the help to them.
* FoundTheKillerLostTheMurderer: The end of season one.
* FruitOfTheLoon: Charlie, all the time.
* GenreBlindness: In one episode, Charlie warns Bobby not to approach the house he's observing until Charlie arrives. Naturally, as soon as the target closes the blinds, he enters the house without Charlie and gets into trouble.
* GenreSavvy: In one episode, Reese is away, so Charlie solves the case with the help of his old partner. Then, after catching the killer, he's sitting on the dead guy's roof, talking with Reese on his cell, about how they still don't know why the guy was killed. When he goes quiet, Reese accurately predicts that he's having a EurekaMoment.
* GoMadFromTheIsolation: Charlie spent a lot of time in solitary confinement. A ''lot'' of time.
* HadToComeToPrisonToBeACrook: When we meet Arthur Tins in season 1, he's a low-rate con artist whom Crews sends to prison. When we see him again in season 2 after he's escaped, he's a hardened criminal who murders one man, robs an armored car and takes a family hostage.
* HelloAttorney: Constance.
* HeyItsThatGuy: [[BandofBrothers Major Winters]] gets to be a cop! and [[BandofBrothers Bull Randleman]] gets to be a prisoner that he helps out! Also, [[BandofBrothers Skip Muck]] never died and now builds airplanes!
* HideYourPregnancy: Sarah Shahi was pregnant during the last episodes of season 2 so she got written into a storyline of being interviewed by the FBI and temporarily replaced by Gabrielle Union.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler: How do you stop a ProfessionalKiller who kills people using household objects from escaping? Put the diet soda you asked her for in her gas tank.]] Not to mention the fact that the victim [[spoiler:was a hitman himself, who she killed because the economy was bad and she didn't need the competition.]]
* HolyBacklight: In the Season One finale, "Fill It Up." Also pops up again in "Re-Entry".
* HyperAwareness: "It's all here. Except for what's not here." "What does that mean? Does anybody know what that means?"
* HypocriticalHumor:
-->'''Ted:''' What are you thinking about?\\
'''Crews:''' What I want and what I need.\\
'''Ted:''' What do you want? \\
'''Crews:''' A peaceful soul.\\
'''Ted:''' What do you need?\\
'''Crews:''' A bigger gun.
** Debatable, Crews seems to be saying that the reason he needs a bigger gun is more important than having a peaceful soul. Either way, doubles as a CrowningMomentOfAwesome.
* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Almost all the Seever episodes included a number.
* JurisdictionFriction: Crews and Reese are sent to investigate the murder of a sheriff's deputy on an Indian reservation to avoid a turf war between the tribal police and the sheriff's department.
* KarmaHoudini: Roman, in the episode "The Fallen Woman," killed a woman, but is able to get away untouched because he's an informant for the FBI.
** This starts to fade midway through season two, diminishing completely by the series end.
* LettingHerHairDown: Reese in Season 2.
* MeaningfulName: Subverted by Eval (sounds like "evil"), a leading suspect in "Evil...and His Brother Ziggy." He's a sketchy guy illegally importing guns, but it turns out they're musketoons for use in (historically inaccurate) reenactments for his casino.
* MundaneLuxury: Crews's love of fresh fruit stems from not being able to get any while in prison.
* MundaneMadeAwesome: In season one there is a very dramatic sequence in which a thirty-year-old guy and a teenage girl try to play Prince of Persia to level 10.
* MustLetThemGetAway
* MysteryOfTheWeek
* NativeAmericanCasino: In episode 2x10, the deputy is killed in one of those reservation casinos.
* OfCorpseHesAlive: Used (quickly, at a distance) to trick a confession in one episode.
* OddCouple. Uh... well, ''duh''. Reese and Crews are so completely different, which of course, led to {{Shipping}}.
** In the Season Two Finale, "One", [[spoiler:the last few seconds indicate it might be canon. ''May.'']]
* PacManFever: See the trope entry for MundaneMadeAwesome. This part of "A Civil War" was widely mocked on gaming blogs.
* PoliceProcedural
* PunkInTheTrunk: Charlie does this to [[spoiler:Kyle Hollis]] in "Fill It Up."
* PutOnABus: Constance and Rachel.
* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Reese joins the FBI, and is never shown standing up, due to Sarah Shahi's real life pregnancy.
* RedHeadedHero: Charlie
* RoomFullOfCrazy: Charlie's conspiracy wall.
** ItWasHereISwear: When the police storm Charlie's place, hoping to connect him to the murders, said wall magically vanishes. Much to even ''Charlie's'' surprise. Turns out his [[HeterosexualLifePartners roommate/friend]] removed it when he wasn't looking. When Charlie starts up the wall again, he covers the walls in butcher paper first.
** And later on, [[spoiler: a blackmailer manages to charm Ted into letting her into the house he and Charlie share, and takes pictures of the Wall. Uh oh.]] She later [[spoiler:ends up an ally. Turns out her client was involved in the conspiracy, and he wanted to make sure Charlie wasn't gunning for him too.]]
*** There was also a SerialKiller whose room is filled with smiley face memorabilia.
* RunningGag: A number of them, done pretty smartly.
** People rhetorically asking what an experience would be like to highlight how terrible it is - that Charlie would have gone through as a prisoner.
** Charlie's love of fruit.
** Charlie repeating everything that's said to him, often to Reese's dismay.
** "Is that Zen?"
*** And Charlie saying something OnceAnEpisode that might be Zen but turns out not to be. For instance, telling a suspect who is about to hit him that "You strike me and you'll only be striking yourself." The suspect asks "What? Some kind of karmic payback?" Charlie responds "If only. No. My partner will just shoot you in the head."
** "Why is your car full of bullet holes?" "I shot it."
*** Relatedly, Crews's cars all ended up thrashed in some way over the course of the series.
* SamusIsAGirl: Ziggy Vadas
* SeventhEpisodeTwist: Crews finds out about Jack Reese and the Bank of LA shootout.
* ShroudedInMyth: Jude Hays' death.
* SmugSnake: The couple from season 2 who tried to kill 4 birds with 1 stone: Kill his wife, frame her little sister, use the murder as a springboard for a political career and humiliate the police.
* StoryArc
* SuspiciouslyIdleOfficers: None of the [[DirtyCop FBI agents who secretly work for Roman]] seem to have any duties other than those he gives to them.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Seever for Dani.
* TheyFightCrime
* TokenMinority: While Dani's father is American, her mother is Persian. Everyone else is white.
** The actor who plays Jack Reese is Cuban. There's also Det. Carl Ames and Special Agent Bodner.
** You're forgetting all the ''sexual'' minorities they keep encountering. (After all, it is California.)
** There's an entire episode set on an Indian reservation, and Seever herself qualifies as a TwoferTokenMinority.
* [[TooDumbToLive Too Dumb to Run Psychology Experiments]]: The sociology professor in "Not for Nothing" replicated an experiment specifically known for encouraging abusive behavior in its participants... and then decided that random blackouts with no direct supervision ''an purposeful psychological torture'' were a good idea. [[AlwaysMurder You can guess what happened.]]
** This may also be a case of research failure, as modern ethical guidelines would probably rule out his experimental design in the first place. Maybe not, though, as the professor was shown to be trying to cover his tracks and was ultimately arrested for his behavior.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: fruit, fruit, any kind of fruit.
* TurnInYourBadge
* UndisclosedFunds: Charlie's settlement.
* UnusualEuphemism: "Uncap the Sharpie." Reese is asked this and is horrified.
* {{UST}}: Studiously, conspicuously and ''hilariously'' averted, with both of Crews' female partners.
** In the more generic, regular type of UST. There are some subtle indications that maybe there is something more going on. Alas, we'll never know.
** Averted or subverted? Seever make a speech about the fact this will forcibly comes. Of course, Charlie was not listening, being in one of his {{EurekaMoment}}s.
* WhatDoTheyFearEpisode: "Not for Nothing" turned out to be this.
* WhatWouldXDo: The dead person variant.
* WrapItUp: the second and series finale. The MythArc isn't really solved yet, but the ending is satisfied enough that both Crews and the audience be at peace.
* ZenSurvivor: Charlie, literally.

* TheWonka: Charlie.

* CreatorProvincialism: One episode had characters say that a local mall was the ''n''th largest in the world, with all their suggestions being within the top ten. No American malls were in the top ten larges5 in the world during the years of the show's run.

** Benny the ComicRelief makes Patrick laugh but knows he's weak and Patrick's right to not trust him.

** In the season one finale, Mark Rawls says to Crews that it 'feels like earthquake weather'. Next season, there is an earthquake.

* ChristmasEpisode: Crews and Reese investigate a mall murder.