I don’t actually watch that much network television, but I have to admit that I probably watch more Foxfare than anything else.

Tonight, there premiered a new show, called “New Amsterdam.”

It’s an interesting premise. A man who was born in the early seventeenth century (or even a century before) is given eternal (or almost eternal–hang on) life in perpetual youth. He lives that long life in what was at that time New Amsterdam, but what become shortly thereafter (once the British took it from the Dutch) New York.

He sees the village evolve into a town, then into a city, then into the greatest city in the western world (if not the world itself), which is why it was attacked six and a half years ago by those to whom the western world is an anathema to their seventh-century beliefs. But I digress.

He becomes a homicide detective in that great city, and his knowledge of the past is a great aid in solving gotham crimes.

As I said, an interesting premise. I mean, given that CSI, Wherever, is one of the biggest hits on network television, how could any producer turn it down?

But there’s a (supposedly) dark undercurrent to the story.

His eternal life is not viewed, by the story writers or himself, as a blessing. It is apparently a curse. He cannot end his life volitionally. The only way to put an end to this (apparent, and obvious, at least to the script writers) misery of endless youth and health is to find his true love.

Then he can die.

Just how perverse is that?

Let’s parse it.

OK, so you’ve “suffered” through four centuries of youthful life, in perpetual health, in a world in which your chances of dying are nil, and you apparently don’t even suffer any pain, though this is a world in which even dentistry is barbaric for at least the first three hundred years. And now, after having seen a little village purchased with beads on a little island at the mouth of a river, you’ve watched it become the most powerful city on the planet, you want to check out?

You’re in the early twenty-first century, about to enter a world in which many may join you in your longevity, though without the “burden” if having to find their true love to end it.

Well, both boo, and hoo.

Here’s the thing that makes this science fiction (or rather, speculative fiction).

In the real world, people who are offered the gift of living forever will also have the capability of ending that endless life, barring some sadistic fascist government that (like some perceptions of God) thinks that the individuals are the property of the state, and not of themselves. If they really get tired of life, they will check out, either legally and easily, or illegally and in a more difficult manner. But the will to die, if it is strong enough, will win out.

So to me, the real suspension of disbelief in this new series is not that a man could live for four hundred years, but rather, that he would have to live that long in misery.

Thus, it is more of a morality tale, based on unrealistic premises, than one based on anything resembling the true future.

I hope that no one decides that long life is a bad thing, and more importantly, that no one thinks that it is something that no one should have, based on this foolish, deathist premise.