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walkwithheroes
While it may seem like all I do is watch Asian dramas, that’s not true. I’m also a huge fan of British television, and not just Doctor Who. Way back in 2006, I started watching Life on Mars and fell in love with it. I ate both series up and could not wait for new episodes. I was actually really sad to see it end, and though there is Ashes to Ashes (which I’ve only watched three episodes of) it’s just not the same.
There was something special about the show. I even did fanvids for it and wrote a crossover fic with Sam and River Tam!
To quote one of the producers: ”It’s the thinking man’s Doctor Who.”. Recently, I’ve started a rewatch of the show and actually watched all sixteen episodes in two and a half days. In honor of this, I decided to do a bit of a pimp post for the drama. My hope is that at least one person reads this post (because it will take a lot of work) and that at least one person gives the show a shot after reading this.
Stars: John Simm as Sam Tyler; Philip Glenister as Gene Hunt; Liz White as Annie Cartwright; Dean Andrews (Ray Carling); Marshall Lancaster (Chris Skelton)
PLOT:
Episode One:
Sam Tyler is a thirty-something DCI in Manchester. He’s the type that wears black suits and ties, even when he’s off duty. He uses computer databases and the books more than pure gut feelings and leg work. Sam is the guy that solves cases via what science tells him. It’s 2006 and he’s forgotten all about the ways of leg work and using informants to get the job done.
When we first meet Sam, he and his partner (both on the force and in life), Maya, are on the search for a killer. Sam believes they have the killer in a man called Colin Raimes, a schizophrenic, who keeps a dairy discussing murder. However, Colin could not have committed the murder because he was with his social worker at a health center. Maya wants to look into a new lead, thinking that Colin is connected with the real murder; Sam shrugs her off, and wants to go back to the drawing board.
A day or so later, Maya is kidnapped by the actual murder. Sam, feeling like it is his fault, steps out of his car and is run over. When he awakes, he is no longer on the highway, in fact he’s not even in 2006. Sam is in 1973.
And it’s not a thing where he travels back, but his clothes and things remain the same. Nope. Sam’s clothing and car are now from the early 1970s. His I-pod is now the car’s 8-track player. His files are no longer on a laptop, but are just pieces of paper. And to top it off, he’s now just a DI.
Sam makes his way to CID, where he has a bit of a meltdown. Something that results in everyone more or less thinking he’s insane. It also means that Sam gets off on the wrong foot with DCI Gene Hunt and DS Ray Carling; DC Chris Skelton is more open, but still thinks Sam is off his rocker.
Sam finds that the case the CID is working on in 1973 is the same as the one he’s working on in 2006 – something that leads Sam to believe he’s either time traveled or gone into a coma. Sam decides that if he can solve the 1973 case, then he can go home and save Maya. Sadly, there are no computers or any real CSI in 1973. Oh yeah, and, everyone thinks he’s crazy. Well, everyone but WPC Annie Cartwright, - who studied psychology in college - she thinks he’s bumped his head and should go to the hospital.
The crime is solved thanks to Sam’s know-how and Gene’s ability to get people to open up. And yet . . . Sam stays in 1973.
Series One:
The first series of the show is very much about four things: Sam wanting to go home; Sam’s “daddy issues”; Gene and Sam learning from one another; and Sam seeing these people as objects in his mind, while starting to have genuine feelings for them. He likes Chris and Ray and does think of them as friends; he is attracted to Annie; and he does see Gene as a partner that he can learn from. But, at the same time, he also thinks they are all in his mind.
Series Two:
Series two focuses much more on ‘the past comes back to haunt you’ storylines. Gene deals with a couple of cases that he messed up on, while Sam meets several people that play a major role in his life – a crime boss he put away in 2006 (in 1973 an up and coming casino owner), the mother of his girlfriend Maya, and the man who was his mentor and was the one to promote him to DCI in the 2000s (currently a low level officer forced to put up with racial jokes from his co-workers.) The series looked at the racial and political tensions that were running high during the 1970s in Manchester.
The second series also sees Sam becoming more at ease with his life in 1973. He may still think he’s in a coma, but he’s oddly comfortable with being a DI there and with have relationships with the people there – even if he did “make them up”.
Series two also sees changes in the dynamics of things: Chris is a willing student of Sam, with a bit of a hero-worship thing going on; Ray and Sam still have that tension, but on are better terms; Sam is more open to some of Gene’s roughing methods and Gene is more open to Sam’s ‘by-the-book’ methods; and, Sam is more open to being with Annie in a romantic way.
As with the first series, many of the cases in 1973 reflected what Sam was ‘hearing’ from 2006. For example, in 1.06, the CID has a time limit to save hostages at a newspaper – Sam believes his mother will pull the plug on him in 2006 at the same time the hostages are set to die. In 2.05, Sam believes he’s OD’ed on meds, setting him in a deeper coma – meanwhile the CID have a short time to ‘fix an old mistake’ and save kidnapped victims.
Sam and Objects:
While the show always showed Sam is hearing and seeing things – people talking to him via the television and telephone, hearing hospital noises at certain times, and seeing the Test Card Girl who spoke to him, etc – it never outright said if he was in a coma. In fact, it sometimes entertained the idea that maybe he was in a coma, but maybe he had traveled back in time. You were always left wondering, especially as Sam was in all the scenes and scenes often jumped – one minute it was day and the next Sam was in his flat, waking up from a nightmare.
CHARACTERS:
DI SAM TYLER:
Sam is in his mid-thirties and in 2006 he’s a by-the-book CDI. Sam’s father disappeared when he was four and Sam was raised by his mother and his mother’s sisters and friends. He’s wanted to be a cop since he was a child and often went to football games with his dad. In 1973, he was four years old.
When we first meet Sam, he’s dating Maya, but the relationship seems rocky. It’s her disappearance that distressed him so much that he gets out of his car near the freeway and his run-over.
Sam spends a lot of time listening to the phone calls that only he hears and having weird moments where he hears and sees odd things. At first he hates 1973 and wants nothing more than to ‘wake up’ and get rid of the odd world he lives in.
During series one, he meets his father, Vic Tyler, who left the family in 1973; Sam sadly learns some bad things about his father. During the first series, Sam is very much all about getting home; but, during the second series that desire is seen less and less. Yes, he still wants to go home, but he’s much more comfortable and talks less about those around him being fake.
At the end of the second series and Life on Mars itself, it is very clear that Sam belongs in 1973 – even if it’s all in his head. He likes it there and he likes the people.
DCI GENE HUNT
Gene is an old-school type of cop. He’s a fan of Westerns from the 1960s and is all about catching the villains before the pubs open up at five. Gene is sexist, racist, and homophobic at times, but you like him; maybe because he really does have the best interest of the city at heart or maybe because he really cares about everyone who works with him – from the ladies in the canteen to Sam Tyler. In real life you would not want to be within ten feet of this man – especially if you were a suspect in a crime – but, on screen he works.
And, as the series goes on he learns from Sam and becomes more willing to listen to suspects and more willing to do things by the book; he is also more willing to admit to his mistakes. Because of Sam, Gene Hunt becomes a better police officer and leader.
WPC/WDC ANNIE CARTWRIGHT
She’s in her mid-to-late-twenties and is a woman officer; which means she basically walks people home from the CID, tends to hysterical girlfriends and children, does simple First Aid, finds lost pets, gets names of people at crime scenes, and keeps the records room, lost and found, and prisoner cells clean. And yet, the girl has a B.A. in Psychology – she’s probably smarter than most of the men in CID. But, before Sam arrives, she just does as she’s told. It’s Sam coming along, and treating her like a person, that gives Annie the courage she needs to speak up.
Annie is the only person that Sam talks to about his visions and the fact that he’s from 2006. She becomes his best friend and love interest throughout the course of the sixteen episodes of the show. It’s strange at times, because Sam thinks Annie is from his mind, and yet – they fall for each other.
Annie grows throughout the series, becoming stronger and proving herself to the boys of CID. She also stays by Sam’s side – even when she thinks he’s crazy – because, well, she’s Annie.
DS RAY CARLING: and DC CHRIS SKELTON
Ray is the DC in the CID. He’s in his thirties, smokes a lot, and has two girlfriends in the first series (he dates them at the same time) called Trudy and Wilma. Before Sam, Ray was apparently up for the DI job at the CID. He was also Gene’s right-hand man, so there is some jealously on Ray’s part when he comes to Sam and his partnership with Gene. Like Gene, Ray is sexist, racist, and homophobic; in fact he is a lot like Gene in terms of basic personality.
During the first series, he is very much anti-Sam and the two get into a couple of physical fights. However, the two come to a bit of an understanding during series two. The truth is Ray doesn’t get too much character development throughout the series. We do watch him become a better officer thanks to Sam.
Chris is the naïve DC in his mid-twenties. Chris is loyal to Gene, but torn because he wants to learn from Sam. During the early episodes of series one, he seems to have a bit of a crush on Annie. Chris is good friends with Ray and often goes to Ray, Gene, and Sam for advice when it comes to the ladies. Chris takes on several of Sam’s ways – like recording interviews on tape – throughout the two series.
Like Ray, Chris doesn’t get too much character development and is often seen more as Sam’s protégée than anything else. By teaching Chris the policing techniques of 2006, Sam hopes to better the CID of the 1970s.
FANDOM:
The fandom is currently fairly quiet as most people have gone on to watch Ashes to Ashes and are more interested in that. It’s understandable as the second series ended in 2008.
People still write fanfics sometimes and there are a several vids on youtube. Most of the fandom is very much into Gene/Sam as a romantic-slash pairing. Indeed, most of fandom seems to be all about Gene and Sam as a pairing. I was once told that most of the fandom actually dislikes Annie. I personally don’t see Gene and Sam as having anything other than a love-hate friendship, but then I don’t slash characters that are straight in canon.
Anyway, the fandom is more or less dead, but there are still lots of great fics and vids floating around livejournal and youtube.
REMAKES:
There was a U.S. remake that aired for seventeen episodes before ending. I was going to watch it, but just couldn’t. They had Harvey Keitel, who was born in 1939, playing Gene! It ended with it all being a dream – Sam Tyler (Jason O'Mara) is an astronaut on a spaceship to Mars. The dream was a deceive to ship and have whatever dream you want, but thanks to a meter storm, Sam’s dream of being in 2008 got messed up. Oh, and Gene was Sam’s real dad and actually named Major Tom Tyler.
Spain did a remake too. They called it Girl of Yesterday after a classic Spanish song from the 1970s. The series took place in 1977 in post-Franco Spain. It ended within three months, but was able to put together an ending. Samuel Santos (Ernesto Alterio) actually did time travel. The ending scenes have him with Ana at a tunnel that will bring him back to his own time. The two confirm their love and kiss. Samuel asks Ana to come with him, but she refuses as she can’t leave her family and friends to go to an unknown place. Samuel heads to the light that will bring him home and Ana walks away in tears. But then – she hears Samuel call her name and turns to see that Samuel is running toward her. He’s decided to stay and the two kiss again. (Aw!)
OVERALL:
Plot: 8/10. At times the plots can get a bit, well, holey. But, it’s cleverly written.
Cast: 9/10. A brilliant cast with great chemistry.
Characters: 8/10. They aren’t stereotypes of their time – they grow and change.
Writing: 9/10. Clever and just really well written.
Overall Score: 9/10. One of the best series I’ve seen. Lots of twists and turns, cool characters, good writing, beautiful directing and overall production, music that fit every scene. Awesome.
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Date: 2010-05-13 07:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-14 12:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-13 11:38 pm (UTC)I watched the American remake and it did have its moments, but I was so thrown off by the ending. I think they just wrote that because the series was not renewed for a 2nd season.
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Date: 2010-05-14 12:43 am (UTC)I just couldn't watch the American remake, because it just seemed like they were trying too hard to Americanize it. I think the ending of the remake was a bit silly to tell the truth. They had time to come up with something better, but I think they went a bit too corny with it.