Show creator David Hudgins has enjoyed some great success of late taking a supervising producer credit on the critically acclaimed drama series Friday Night Lights, so it is no surprise that he got the chance to create his own show. Past Life is loosely based on The Reincarnationist, a crime thriller by M.J. Rose, it is about a man who solves modern crime through channelling his past life in ancient Rome. The TV show takes the twist that other people experiencing past life intruding on their present happens because their past selves want to right a wrong.

In the pilot we are thrown right in when high school kid keeps getting hallucinations, having sought help everywhere else his parents turn to Dr. Kate McGinn who offers the explanation of a past life. Her operation has recently expanded by hiring a cop with past onto the team, Price Whatley gives the formally all Doctor group much needed detective skills (a bit like a reverse Mentalist). Following clues they quickly conclude that the boy has the past life of a murdered girl in him and the reason for her showing herself is to help free her sister who was abducted at the same time, but not murdered. In the end they find the girl who has grown up thinking she was adopted. With the sister reunited the high school boy can get back to living – this makes it feel less like a Past Life and more like a possession, either way, why did the sister wait 15 yeas to show herself. We leave with sceptic cop with a past now a believer and he reveals that he took the job in hope he can contact his dead wife.

The problem with the story in the pilot is that we are dealing with a tragedy around characters that we don’t know and don’t care about. Even the boy who is having flashbacks to his past is hardly featured other than wheeling him out in front of people and locations in order to see if he will go crazy. Our main gang of investigators appear to operate outside of law enforcement but with their full support and trust. This is a gimmick led show that struggles to work convincingly for an episode let alone a series.

Past Life represents the kind of TV shows that drive me nuts. It takes a bullshit science and presents it as reality. In fact if there was anything in this world that even came close to proof of Past Lives it would blow everything we know about the human mind and science out the window. Sure you can say this is fiction, but it is the way that the subject matter is handled. This is presented as the real world in which we live in and if your child is going nuts then forget therapy, just stick him in a chair and let him regress. Other shows like this include Ghost Whisperer and Medium, mainly because it gives credibility to some of the most evil people on the planet. Those who seek to exploit people in their most desperate hour, real police time is wasted and these charlatans are only too happy to profit off the back of someone else’s tragedy. For an insight into what these folk get up to check out Stop Sylvia Browne. Rant over.

While Ghost Whisperer and Medium are enjoying great success, Past Life has not fared so well. After a strong opening the second episode lost 50% of the viewers with episode three continuing the downward slide. The series has been cut short with the remaining four episodes to be dumped in the schedules as some point down the line.

Created / Written by: David Hudgins
Directed by: Deran Sarafian
Starring: Kelli Giddish, Nicholas Bishop, Richard Schiff, Ravi Patel
Date premièred: 9^th February 2010
UK Details: TBC

Tags: David Hudgins, Detective, Drama, Fox

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 9:13 pm and is filed under Drama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.