Life on Mars

This is a collage of comments from one lengthy letter (30 pages) to skit and some emails (utterly out of order). There are spoilers of course but let’s face it, no one but me is going to read this.


I think you said something like you weren't sure I'd like it after all the hype you gave it... or something. Fool. Course I like it. I was intrigued enough by the yuletide trailers and then intrigue became desire with so many people and in particular you and Mike (he's got my tv trust Big Time by recommending Green Wing and Blackpool <-- David Tennant Show).

Episode 1

It was stunning.

I just loved him getting knocked down so suddenly. And the increase in the volume of David Bowie... the whole transition, waking up and seeing the sign showing the proposed road system. Wonderful choice of location. That moment was so unambiguous when the impact could have been lost with "eh? He's woken up somewhere muddy". But of course it was... iconic. Anyway. Almost immediately we are in the chauvinistic Police Station (PC Terminal... *sniggers*) and my mum walks in and I pause and we talk about how she felt teaching in the 70s. She said that LoM captured the feeling of hostility towards women... and egads do I feel glad to be born in a sensible time. Obviously there are mainly men in senior positions but at least there is zero hostility in the physics world.

Sam: I'm gonna walk till I can't think up any more faces or streets... I mean this is just...
Annie: Just what?
Sam: This is madness.

Ah, great moment. Not as good as the Life on Mars moment. But moments like this... set to strong music... are what make the show. They need more. Many more. Like Angel and sexy moments in season one (like walking down the alley, blowing the draws, jumping out of a high window...). Oh, there was a slight billowy jacket moment in 2006 which I liked. Coats should billow methinks.

Difficult Witness: You got Garibaldis?
Gene (barking an order): Chris- Garibaldis.

There's Something About Maya.

There is.

I think you may have interpreted the start differently... here is my take. Sam and Maya are going through a rough patch. Sam thinks that his feelings are being ignored and the relationship is taut and uncomfortable. They ignore it rather than work through the problems. It affects their working relationship and Sam is as inclined to give up on cases as he is his relationship with her. She still holds some hope for the cases and wants to encourage Sam to come back to his former self which was not so closed off, which was emotional. So Sam is right- they need to stop working together as she is stopping him from feeling free enough at work to solve cases. He begrudges her presence. And when she is kidnapped... he blames himself as well as being distraught over a loved one in peril. Going to 1973 is really as far away from her as he can get and he knows he needs to get far away. He needs to stop thinking about her and the complexities of modern relationships.

Or something.

I say this because you said something ages ago about how he didn't like that there was no place for gut feelings in 2006. But there are. He used them, Maya used them... it was their tangled relationship that was the problem.

And so... it seems to be all about Maya. The whole thing. 1973 and everything... but then she isn't in the subsequent episodes so you have to doubt it. Perhaps this was just how they decided to start the episode in a clumsy way to introduce gut and someone for Sam to care about to add danger. Who knows?

Episode 2

Chris: Why have you put tapioca pudding on your beefburger?

Man: I'm not a doctor chief. I'm the ambulance driver.

Life is so much better now. They don't need to make an obvious thing about it. It just is.

He's got the dead girl’s blood on his face... that is some great acting. But still, I feel that he is only really broken in 2006 when he can't drive safely for the pain. But the pain here is quite high. Wiping up her blood with his jacket...

Sam: Please can I have a year that is AD as opposed to BC?

Nurse [re Sam and Gene fighting]: What on earth is going....
Sam and Gene [showing badges]: Police Officers.

Sam: Is that urine?
Lights going out.... Wonderful panic. Like a small ball screaming in the dark for his mum after a nightmare makes him wet the bed...

Live and let dieeeeeeeeeeee. Boom boom! I need this song and Life on Mars... I think they are the two that stand out the most.

Episode 3

Sam [re following a proper procedure]: No... I'm, I'm going to say this and I know you're gonna throw things at me...

Sam: Anyone can run around like a headless chicken but nothing can beat the satisfaction of a thorough investigative process.

I liked that episode. Less messing about with weird comaness for the sake of it. And the Test card girl is scarier than her clown and that is really saying something. And if this is all to do with Bad Wolf I will be annoyed.

But yeah- as I requested there was less coma and more story-telling about 00s techniques in 70s. And less Annie, dull smiley Annie. And I kind of liked the whole message being applicable to the characters and the audience. The message of don't trust your gut- trust facts. But your gut is pretty useful! Because Derek was obviously the killer in the very first scene he was in but of course the audience's (ie my) gut was wrong and yet right at the same time as although he was innocent of the murder, he was guilty of something else. Which I do believe was on purpose and very clever. Very. Anyway.

[Taped police interview]
Chris: 4ish.
Sam: Precise time.
Chris: Just after 4. Five past... ten past...
Sam: 4 oh 7.
Chris: Closer to ten past.

Episode 4

I like him getting the arresting speech wrong. It is a good running joke.

He only knows where his mum lives from a dream. Where does the dream come from? You see, I don't think he does remember... I really think that there is someone doing this to him.

Sam [offering his mum help]: It's only money.
Ruth: There's no such thing as only, Detective Inspector.

I even like the score as Sam slams the money on Warren's table... Nicely done. Music is well used in this. Noticable yet you don't begrudge it.

Sam: He’s gay?
Gene: As a bloody Christmas tree.

The girl being a honeytrap was bloody obvious and I was more than a little miffed that all she wanted was a touch of kindness and Sam was able to win her over... bleurgh. I don't get why you rated this episode so highly. I enjoyed it but this segment was not good.

Gene: I didn't think you could lock a murder suspect in a big fridge.
Sam: He wouldn't answer my question.

Warren: How dare you come in here?
Gene: Could've said that to the boy.

Why 1973? Now that's a question, right? Not necessarily with a fictional answer... maybe a writer has a particular love of that year.

I had to stop watching it when dinner struck. So I saw Quantum Leap and Due South with my mum and brother. Not a patch on Life On Mars of course. Though come to think of it... A QL comparison is easily drawn with the bad voiceover about finding a way home (and Farscape but QL is about correcting wrongs in the past, within "Sam's" lifetime so it is very similar). I can also make a Due South comparison. Mountie brings his strict, methodical and polite methods to another country where they use violence, have corruption and... lots of car chases. And Chicago bears a great resemblance to 70s Manchester.

Of course, originality in tv isn't necessary. Because... life is essentially life and if doing Board quiz links has proved anything it is that everyone is the same so it matters not what tv does but how it does it. With humour? With style? With lessons to absorb creating something in the viewer that wasn't there before be it a smile or an idea?

It is a bit original though. Can't think of anything that does the coma mystery thing.

Episode 5

Sam: If it was about football he'd have serious injuries.
Gene: He's dead. That's quite serious.

Episode 6

Mmm I liked the hostage one.

I love the start of the hostage episode... love the broken phone. Love What a Wonderful World.

I liked Sam's helplessness, his desperation... not being able to do anything about it when people by his bedside beg him to wake up. Or threaten to switch off his life support. I don't know where I want that to go... obviously he can't keep being helpless. He doesn't seem prone to breaking. If he was then he wouldn't have come out of the hostage situation. So if not breaking under the helplessness, he must learn to deal with it or find a way to overcome it. Which do I want? Dead acceptance or... I don't know. Waking up I guess. Or choosing to stay asleep. Neither really things I want to happen because it would mark the end of the series or to the question of whether he would wake or not... whatever. I hope they do something to avoid the monotony and character stagnation of keeping with the helplessness but none of the obvious ways.

Sam: I'm the negotiator.
Gene: I'll make you a hat.

Gene: As soon as he opens a window we'll have him.
Sam: Why would he open a window?
Gene: Might be getting stuffy.

It's an illusion of life... I don't think I caught the repetition of Ruth's words the first time through. I am veering towards coma now and I don't much care if that is true... it doesn't feel like the cheap way out.

[Gene survives a gun shot as it hits his hip flask]
Gene: That was lucky, eh?
Man: What are the chances?!
Gene [shows jacket pockets full of hip flasks]: Pretty good actually.

You have to like an episode where Sam smiles so much, don't you?

Yeah, the more I entertain the idea the more I actually want this to be in his head. Because then I can forgive so many problems and it raises the possibility that we could one day get more tangled in Sam's subconsciousmess, totally dispel the reality myth.

I looked at the writers and they do change a lot. It went around the three creators but at least one was an outsider. It seems remarkable that they kept consistency. And by consistency I mean...

The standard of every episode was pretty much the same. I didn't feel that there were any weak episodes. Conversely, no strong ones. But the standard was exceptionally high so I'm not really complaining. Except that I kind of like having a favourite episode, a hook, a precious image. Hmm, maybe the final episode or the first one... the middle, though exceptionally high standard, kind of feels sameish. There is a case. They solve it with a mix of methods, funny lines and odd coma moments. The first is special as the first and the eighth very different as Sam doesn't try to solve a case at all. But I wish I understood the fallout. How could Sam pull a gun on Gene and let a master criminal run free without recriminations? But anyway. I was talking about it being kind of episodic and procedural despite a good concept, production, characters, whatever. Like Buffy 1? Angel 1 even.

Episode 7

Gene: Recreational? It's cocaine not Subuteo.

Woman [re Gene]: He your boss? What would I get for smacking him one?
Sam: A round of applause from half the station?

Sam has real problems mixing professional and social lives. Investigating Annie didn't go so well. I don't think there is a wrong way or a right way here... keeping professional works on the whole. It means he does his job fairly and gets the results... but you do get that he is isolating himself too much. Both in 2006 and here though here is easier for him and yes, he may be trying to discover how to marry him and a person with him as a detective- the gut with the head.

Episode 8

I liked the lines about Gene making very mixed metaphors and Sam covering his lie over his name to his mum by saying it was a professional alias and Gene confirming that he really does think like that.

So there is the episode where a guy dies in the cells and Sam investigates which is all I remember... Hmm. And then his dad which was quite fun because his dad was well written and acted. I just wish I got how Sam got away with helping him escape. Liked discovering what the red in the woods was all about.

I talked to my dad in the car about LoM. He liked it but thought that the depiction of life in the 70s as unrealistically good. He said that in his experience, the police force was much worse. More corrupt (incidentally, I didn't like how corruption only seemed to be in there when it mattered to the plot) and more drunk and violent. He said that at 10pm each day in the cells, the Detective Sergeant would come in and whoever was in the cells would know to either confess to something or point the finger at someone else, else suffer a beating.

Still can't do any Imaginings of LoM though. There almost was one... but his mum was utterly gullible and didn't confront him with his lame excuses to call on her with a false name no less. I like her but... she could show some distrust. I don't even believe she'll go to him asking questions about her husband's disappearance. She's so bad for secrets/confrontation/revelation Imaginings.

Imaginings with Gene or anyone are impossible as they don't seem to care at all about Sam's craziness. They keep shrugging it off. Damn them. I need concern. Interaction. Interest.

And I don't actually like Annie and besides, she's shown no real interest in interfering with Sam. He tells her stuff. She sighs and is pretty non-judgemental. Gah.

Imagining 2006 is pretty dull too. Though my mum clearly likes empathising with the mum in 2006. Even if I wanted to, empathising is too short a distraction. I need full blown scenes if not episodes to play in my head.

English Alien

What would you miss the most if you got knocked down and fell in a coma and woke up in 1973? TV, books, films, music made post 1973? Coffee shops... the variety of food available... Internet of course. I guess in a way it is like me going to Japan except for the Internet still being there and English being absent! Life on a different planet, a different place... No, none of those first things. Not even tv, honest. I don't know... I think of Arthur Dent. I think of how his umbilical cord (or whatever) tie with Earth was cut and it just hang there. A person without a home... never going to be happy anywhere, constantly searching. I don't know what ties us to a location. Maybe it is the concept of there being a chance, no matter how slim, of seeing a friendly face.

I don't know. I don't think you will appreciate these musings so much... you like other places. Being alone to explore. I don't. I like Tunbridge Wells where I know where my friends hang out and shop so can usually maximise my chances of bumping into them. I like going into Nero at 5pm on Saturdays and having the guy know my order (I am purposefully difficult at Starbucks but Nero is home). I like knowing the roads so well I don't have to pay attention. My dad seems exactly the same. He knows everyone it seems... well, the police and the criminals.

When I first got to SLAC I wore my ID everywhere. I needed to prove to everyone that I belonged there. But most importantly, to myself. Only recently have I left my ID in my desk drawer, only to bring it out when needed.

I waste so much time feeling like an alien, like everyone is a foe not a friend. Life on Mars is appropriate. But Sam seems to have dealt okay.

TV Thread comments that didn’t fit anywhere above

Oh yeah I meant to say that I loved the whole Sweenyesque stuff. I think Gene goes "Shut It" at one point which was of course a catchphrase from that. But you knew that already. Yeah, the pisstake of the genre was spot on. The way it often opened with a car chase and when they played football with the chasee! Hi-larious. So basically a cop show is not true really but you know that already. It's a humorous take on cop shows to make a serious show about a strange situation. Or something.

“And the whole 1973 thing is done, I think, rather perfectly - making the most of all the differences there are but not exaggerating any too far.”

Not exaggerating enough according to my dad. Which is scary. To think they toned it down for tv...

One thing I liked was that in sticking to the methodical way of doing things, crimes weren't solved too quickly. There was no genius moment of realisation that only the tv character could do and not the viewer (not that I guessed anything before Sam but it wasn't unbelievable that he could work it out).

“End of carping; it wasn't bad and although bits were a bit ham-handed (the sexual politics, esp., ) I enjoyed it overall.”

Esp? Typical man. My mum thought not and she wasn't in a particularly male dominated world like the policeforce. She was a maths teacher. So extrapolate and it seems fine.

“Life on Mars was, if anything, more fun than last week. Because mostly they've got through the heavy existential doubt stuff now and can just concentrate on having fun. I particularly loved him and his DCI having a punch-up in the middle of a hospital ward.”

Yeah that was hilarious! Showing their badges simultaneously... And agreed that it was better when it moved away from the existential doubt (as I also said in my letter... we agree so well when we don't know the other's opinion...).

“I am beginning to wonder about the mistakes. There were a lot of comments about errors on the BBC website, and some of them you can believe they just missed but some of them you'd think would have been easy to research (one of the cars can't apparently have the registration it has, due to when it was made). So I wonder if we're getting hints that it's not exactly time travel...but it's not all to do with a coma either. Maybe.”

Huh. That should have been easy... but that could be an injoke like er... it was the number plate for a writer's first car or something. Just looking at the other possibilities!

“And did he just screw up his own past or am I missing something? Okay he doesn't think it really is the past but...or maybe they always moved on that day. In a hurry. Breaking photo frames as they went. Hmm.”

Yeah, I didn't get that. Especially since they came back! But the mum did say earlier in the episode that they were always moving (obviously thanks to her husband's life of crime).

“After seeing the rent-collecting 'henchman' incident, I was kind of hoping that his father would re-appear and catch him visiting his wife/mother and clock him one!”

I hoped that too... He seemed rather mellow about this strange guy visiting his wife in the final episode. That was Mike again of course.

“- and frightened of this weird cop showing up for flakey-seeming reasons”

Ha yes. But obviously not. She so should have been more suspicious. Her niceness annoys me. Sam has discovered flaws in his dad but what about his mum?

“But oh, I loved the hip flasks. Heehee.”

Me too! I had to rewind and watch that again. So perfect.

“Gene was a bit better when he wasn't so dependably a good guy, though.”

Yeah, I roll my eyes at the gruff but ultimately lovable chief. But that is part of the genre and I guess it is not so bad as he is also "one of the boys".

“That had me completely in stitches. I liked the twist, the shattering of childhood illusions one of my all-time favourites.”

I didn't feel there was enough shattering. I mean, he goes to the pub afterwards... how shattered is that?

“Yeah, not bad, but the chase scenes are definitely getting sillier!”

Love them.