Do You Remember: New Amsterdam

The FOX drama New Amsterdam debuted back on March 4, 2008, airing only 8 episodes of an intentioned 13 episode season. The genre series focused on John Amsterdam (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who has gone on to star as Jaime Lannister in Game of Thrones), an NYPD homicide detective who is 400 years old, but has the appearance of a 35-year-old.

He was Johann van der Zee, a Dutch soldier in Manhattan in the year 1642 when he stepped in front of a sword to save the life of a Native American girl during a massacre of her tribe. The girl in turn rescued Amsterdam by weaving a spell that conferred immortality upon him. It was also prophesied that he would not age until he finds his one true love, and only then will he become whole and ready for mortality.

The cast included the following:

• Zuleikha Robinson [who went on to star in Lost, Homeland, The Following and The Exorcist] played Eva Marquez, Amsterdam’s new partner;
• Alexie Gilmore [who has appeared in the box office film Labor Day and episodes of CSI: Cyber and Get Shorty] played Dr. Sara Millay Dillane, who pronounced Amsterdam dead after a heart attack and became the woman Amsterdam was convinced will be his soul mate; and,
• Stephen Henderson [who has appeared in the films Lincoln, Fences and Lady Bird] played Omar York, who owns a jazz club and is actually John’s 65-year-old son.

The show debuted to 13.5 million viewers, but over the course of the 6 weeks in which the series aired it quickly fell to only 6.8 million viewers.

Among the guest stars who appeared in the short-lived series were the following:

Orlando Jones, who has appeared in Sleepy Hollow and American Gods
Chris Bauer, who was a regular on True Blood
Anastasia Griffith, who has appeared in Damages, Copper and Once Upon a Time
Nestor Serrano, who has been seen in Revenge and The Last Ship
Giancarlo Esposito, who went on to star in Breaking Bad, Revolution and Once Upon a Time
Bridget Regan, who is a regular on The Last Ship and appeared in Jane the Virgin
Kimberly Hebert Gregory, who was a regular in this season’s Kevin (Probably) Saves the World

You can watch the New Amsterdam preview below:

Do you remember New Amsterdam?

Check out previous “Do You Remember” articles on Drive and Threshold.