Charlie Crews is a strange amalgam of contradictions. He was a cop, a con -- supposedly for life -- and now a cop again. He's in-your-face brash, yet Zen.

And he's strangely compelling as the central figure in "Life," premiering Wednesday, Sept. 26 on NBC.

The biggest enigma of this character is why he would rejoin a force that helped put him away for murder. Crews spent 12 years in a maximum security prison before being exonerated and awarded $50 million. The money alone would prompt most people to shed their former lives, or at the very least quit working.

Yet Crews returns to the streets of Los Angeles as a detective. On his downtime, he tries to solve the murders for which he was framed. As the show flashes back to those days, it has a documentary feel. Charlie has a room with photos and a chart of how clues relate.

Damian Lewis ("Band of Brothers") brings Crews to life and does so with a bunch of quirks. Crews eats a lot of fresh fruit, sees the obvious that other detectives miss and simply says whatever comes to mind, as if he were missing the censorship mechanism between brain and mouth.

"Charlie Crews is a man given a second chance, and he is liberated by that second chance," Lewis says. "He finds great pleasure in the small things in life. He has that childlike quality, possibly to his detriment because he is distracted so easily."

"You don't go 12 years without being damaged in some way," Lewis says.

Though Lewis is clearly different from most folks, he is -- even more oddly -- devoid of rancor. Considering his conviction cost him his marriage, career and freedom for a large chunk of his life, it is astounding he isn't constantly furious.

"He is a man amazingly without bitterness, but with a need for justice," Lewis says.

As the season goes on, Lewis says, "He finds himself in bed with inappropriate women. He is very human. He's struggling."

Indeed, women can't resist him. He is cute, self-effacing, famous (or infamous, depending on how one views his case) and rich. Women throw themselves at him constantly, and he can't help but catch them.

One who can resist Charlie is his detective partner, Dani Reese (Sarah Shahi, "The L Word"), who realizes he is different and wants to understand him. Their tough lieutenant, Karen Davis (Robin Weigert, "Deadwood"), is intent on keeping a tight leash on Crews. She does not like him, trust him, or even want him back on the job.

As the actors work on the fifth episode, Weigert says she is gaining a better sense of her character.

"I have trouble engaging someone without some element of supplication," Weigert says. "I'm always hoping I will be liked, and she is not this way at all. I am finding how to sit comfortably in that authority and not be a martinet, finding a way to own it. Who I have looked to as a wonderful example is the Helen Mirren character in 'Prime Suspect.' This show centers on Damian's character. I at least look at her, and that feels right -- the sense of quiet command. I know if I can find that, the center of gravity in myself, it could have interesting results."

While Weigert drew from Mirren's Jane Tennison, Lewis read Joseph Wambaugh's cop novels and visited Kilmainham, a dank prison in Ireland that was decommissioned in 1924, where prisoners were beaten, starved and shot.

While visiting other prisons, Lewis noticed many convicts' haunted look.

"So many of them have a look in their eye that something has died," he says. "They're trying to keep at bay a rage against the world."

In prison, Crews' cellmate was Ted Earley (Adam Arkin, "Chicago Hope"), a white-collar criminal.

"I don't think he's villainous in the typical sense of the word," Arkin says of his character. "He's, I think, addicted to playing with numbers, and he can't resist the temptation to take money that might not be his, but make more of it. Not in order to necessarily line his own pockets, but in order to prove that he can do it."

Earley lives in a room over Crews' garage, and manages Crews' newfound wealth. Though the evolution of Crews will be ongoing, each episode will be self-contained with its own crime to be solved.

"It is satisfying," Lewis says. "It gives you back something for your hour, otherwise you get into something soapy."

Lewis says he sees "Life" as different because of "the sophistication of the emotional story. It's told in a witty and intellectual way, where we care about what happens to Charlie, then we care a lot about what happens to Charlie."