Hit by a car in 2008 while chasing his girlfriend’s kidnapper, Sam Tyler (Jason O’Mara of In Justice and Band of Brothers for ABC’s U.S. version) finds himself transported back to the same place, New York City, thirty years in the past. Tyler finds himself allied (and antagonized by) Detective Ray Carling (Michael Imperioli of The Sopranos) and his new boss, Lieutenant Gene Hunt (Harvey Keitel, who needs no introduction!). Of course, there’s a love interest in the 1970s, too: the beautiful and ahead-of-her-time policewoman Annie Norris (Gretchen Mol). And what is the biggest thing that you need to know? The ABC version is a pale comparison to the BBC version, but entertaining nonetheless.
I’ll warn you now that spoilers await later in my write-up, but for now, consider these nuggets of truth. Tyler has no idea what is going on with him. He knows (and we the audience see with him) that technology from the future breaks through his awareness, bursting into moments when he’s involved in retro criminal cases, trying to break through to catch liars and murderers. He understands current criminal procedure techniques (think forensics of today used in the 1970s minus the actual tools) and he knows different psychological understandings that weren’t quite spelled out back in the day. And he understands that women can do what men can do, which makes him progressive, and draws him to the wise Norris, putting him at odds with the macho chauvinism of the precinct.
What do you do when you know who you are but nothing seems to be right? How do you handle the settings that you find yourself in when you know who you are, and you know that you don’t belong, but the current crises of pain and violence are brutally real as your blood flows? Tyler encounters racism, sexism, technology, change, and even God throughout the episodes that take place in the ABC version’s only season. What does it mean to be yourself in a world that doesn’t make sense, even if you historically understand it? How can you literally be in that world but not of it? How are you a stranger in a strange land, hoping for a better future, but stuck in the present? Wait… aren’t these the same questions that the New Testament, the teachings of Jesus and Paul, ask us to consider in our lives?
This show asked great questions, and it had decent acting, but in the end, I’m not sure that ABC’s viewership was in for another Lost. Which begs the question: will Flashforward make it? At least they’ve billed that as a “television event,” meaning that they accept that it might not be sustainable over time. But I digress. ABC’s Life on Mars featured excellent tunes, decent action, and enough thriller-mystery to make a show rock. But, man, did that ending stink!
In the final, wrap-it-up-and-make-it-end episode, Tyler discovers that his precinct mates are all part of a space shuttle crew who have been programmed by the computer to dream, thus providing their brain waves with appropriate stimulation as they travel to Mars. Seriously??? I was taught a long time ago in English class that the conventions you used in your story had to make sense within the story. So using time travel and unconscious moments are great if you start there, but throwing it all away in the last five minutes? That’s just lame.
So, we’ll see what happens when Life on Mars (BBC) comes out on DVD later this fall and concludes. Hopefully they won’t reduce my love for their version to a mere flight of fancy.
