Life on Mars

[Jonny_Fever]

I got ahold of this series awhile back and loved it, even though I must admit many of the references were lost on me. I dont know how an American remake would work. If i want to watch a show about American cops in the 70's I'll watch either Barney Miller or Starsky and Hutch.

 

[Chilli]

I think I'll have to peek in on the American remake out of morbid interest. American remake. By the guy that did Ally McBeal. Woo-Hoo! (why does one need a remake of a show that works perfectly anyways?)

It's a great show though, yes. Quite a few of the references are lost on me too. I do appreciate subtitles on it - I got SO much more of the show on second viewings, from DVDs, than on my first viewing.

 

[Chilli]

SERIES FINALE SPOILERS AHEAD

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I loved the finale while it lasted, but for the scifi geek in me, it was a bit .. unsatisfying. I was actually hoping to be told if it was time travel or if it was him being mad - I was hoping for Sam to check, in 2006, if there ever was a person called Gene Hunt.

Of course, it wouldn't have fit the narrative, and the ending fit the series perfectly. Just a pity that there will not be a series 3 .. they could continue doing just what the show does best now - a "normal" cop show.

In other news, the spin-off is now confirmed .. and sounding a bit .. I don't know .. rubbish.

Link

The sequel, Ashes to Ashes, will see Philip Glenister return as DCI Gene Hunt - but this time in London in 1981.
He will be joined by a female detective from the 21st Century who is stuck in the past after an accident.

The new character will be a modern woman who has risen through the ranks of the Metropolitan Police by using psychological profiling to capture suspects, producers said.
But when she and her daughter are kidnapped, she is injured in a rescue attempt - and finds herself in 1981.
Jane Featherstone, executive producer for TV production company Kudos, said the search was on for DCI Hunt's new "sexy sidekick".

I do hope they actually have something in mind for WHY people from the future keep hitting Gene Hunt, and aren't just using the same plot device twice.

And .. sexy sidekick? Ugh.

 

[Belbo]

SERIES FINALE SPOILERS AHEAD
I loved the finale while it lasted, but for the scifi geek in me, it was a bit .. unsatisfying.

Yeah, who would have thought that Mulholland Drive was in Manchester, eh?

I was actually hoping to be told if it was time travel or if it was him being mad - I was hoping for Sam to check, in 2006, if there ever was a person called Gene Hunt.

Not to mention what the hell happened to his (ex)-girlfriend with the serial killer ...

I don't think there was much doubt that Sam's 1973 was meant to be a wish-fulfillment delusion (how else do you rationalise yet another all-is-forgiven character reset at the end?) and that Sam is now dead once and for all, as the voice on the radio pretty much says before he tunes it out.

Of course, that's what it literally is in real life, and so we got the cute post-modernist touch of the test card girl turning off our sets at the end too! Michael Powell would have been proud.

I do hope they actually have something in mind for WHY people from the future keep hitting Gene Hunt, and aren't just using the same plot device twice.

I imagine that's what was being set up with the scene where Sam sends a record of his "experiences" off to a female colleague who collects them (and will internalise it all next time).

 

[Galahad]

SERIES FINALE SPOILERS AHEAD

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I loved the finale while it lasted, but for the scifi geek in me, it was a bit .. unsatisfying. I was actually hoping to be told if it was time travel or if it was him being mad

I think he must have existed in both timelines and had a choice as to which one he should remain in... but the only way he could make that choice would be to end his life in the other timeline.

I was hoping for Sam to check, in 2006, if there ever was a person called Gene Hunt.

Same here, but I take it in good faith that there was.

Of course, it wouldn't have fit the narrative, and the ending fit the series perfectly. Just a pity that there will not be a series 3 .. they could continue doing just what the show does best now - a "normal" cop show.

The reason they got away with a lot of the political uncorrectness was because it was being seen through the scrutiny of a man with modern sesibilities. Without that "get out clause", executives will probably assume everyone watching is stupid and will start to believe that 70's style bigotry is acceptable. It's stupid because the typical Life on Mars audience is a bit smarter than that... and you can't pretend the past didn't happen. If people were like that back then, you have to represent them as they were... anything else skews people's understanding of history.

In other news, the spin-off is now confirmed .. and sounding a bit .. I don't know .. rubbish.

It does seem a lot like it is going over the same old ground with just a little twist. I think people were hoping for it to work the other way.... to trap Gene Genie in a modern world setting and unleash his style on modern sensibilities.

I do hope they actually have something in mind for WHY people from the future keep hitting Gene Hunt, and aren't just using the same plot device twice.[/quotw]

Me too

And .. sexy sidekick? Ugh.

I'm sort of wondering now if they are betraying the smarter viewers of LoM and deciding to appease the dirty old men who watched it to remind themselves of their glory days.

 

[Chilli]

Not to mention what the hell happened to his (ex)-girlfriend with the serial killer ...

I just assumed that she was out of the picture after last week .. how they got her from the serial killer .. who knows .. but I wasn't expecting a resolution to that.

What did almost surprise me though is that he did not ask his mother about back then .. if she remembered that weird police inspector from when he was a boy, or something of the sort. Or try to show her that he was in "another place", and that he would only be trying to go back there when jumping.

 

[Galahad]

I just assumed that she was out of the picture after last week .. how they got her from the serial killer .. who knows .. but I wasn't expecting a resolution to that.

In the very first episode, Sam apparently changed history by getting a suspect who had committed the same crimes in 73 and was originally sectioned due to mental illness, jailed (He & Gene threw away the Doctor's mental assessment note). By doing that, it stopped that criminal being released into the community in time to repeat his crimes in the future.

However, there was a twist when it became apparent that the ginger haired kid who lived next door was potentially a copycat killer 30 years later. We were never told which was the case... but as events unfolded in the series we were clearly supposed to assume that Sam and Gene got the right man.