Life On Mars

TUBE!

This TV series centers around Sam Tyler, a New York City police detective out of the 125th precinct. In the beginning of the show set in 2008, Sam and his partner Maya Daniels (Lisa Bonet) are not only partners on the squad, but cohabitants in their apartment.

Maya, to everyone's horror, is kidnapped by a psycho serial killer they have been trying to capture. While responding to a tip he received, Sam is hit by another police car. He regains consciousness and slowly begins to realize something is very strange. He is in clothing from another era, and looks up to see the twin towers. He also has an age appropriate badge and ID and he is equipped with a vintage car - a 1971 Chevy Chevelle. And the icing on the cake is there's an 8-track player holding the David Bowie album "Hunky Dory" (which happens to feature a track called "Life On Mars" and is referenced many times in the show). He asks and is told that he is in 1973.

Tyler returns to the Precinct house to find an unfamiliar early 70's environment with old fashioned equipment and a culture he likens to being on another planet. However the other detectives have been expecting him believing he is a transfer in from a place called "Hyde." Sam's disorientation and his vague references to the future earn him the nick-name "Spaceman" (again vaguely Bowiesque).

Sam lives in a apartment 2-B in his building and his neighbor is a hippie free spirit girl named Windy. Many of the episodes are named song titles or lines from songs and there is an episode called "Everyone knows it's Windy." Also in an episode as a witness watches a couple burly long haired detectives take off after a guy, she states "Look at those cave men go" - which is a line straight out of the aforementioned Bowie song "Life on Mars."

Sam Tyler is a man out of place but as he tries to find a way back home, he also has a job to do there in the precinct. He gets involved in cases that lead him to the serial killer that snatched his girlfriend in 2008, only he is just a young boy in 1973. He also meets his mother, and his father only to be able to see them in his now adult life. He learns that his father is a cruel and heartless murderer and mobster. Sam also has reoccurring nightmares that involve small space landing rovers crawling in and out of his ears and mouth. In one episode he is tracking the head of the Aries Toy Company, who nearly talks Sam into committing suicide. But eventually everything will make sense.

Sam Tyler is played wonderfully by Jason O'Mara, who can lately be seen in the new TV show "Vegas." I liked how his portrayal never seemed at ease, and how he was constantly suffering an inner turmoil without being over the top. Micheal Imperioli (of The Soprano's fame) on the other hand.... well to be fair to him, he played it like it was written. Another great character was policewoman Annie "No Nuts" Norris played by Gretchen Mol (who can now be seen as Jimmy's mother in HBO's "Boardwalk Empire"). She took all of the 1970's trash from the male detectives, but in the end began to come into her own - like many women did in that era. And finally there is the great Harvey Keitel as Gene, the Chief of Detectives. 1973 all the way - complete with a bottle in the drawer and white shoes.

"Life On Mars" was based on a British TV show of the same name. I found this to be a real treat and I loved the way they were always slipping in little clues or snippets for the discerning viewer to catch. Like when Sam finally gets to visit the town of Hyde he was supposedly from, the Hyde reference (as in duel lives Jekyll and Hyde) was not lost on me. In fact at one point an old neighborhood guy is with a young girl from the same neighborhood. The old guy explains "She missed her Hyde" (Mr. Hyde). Also the head the the Aries Toy company was named Frank Morgan. How many remember that the actor who played the Wizard of Oz in the 1939 MGM classic, was Frank Morgan?

I really enjoyed this show. In was on ABC from 10/9/08 until 4/1/09. It only made it one season, and perhaps knowing that it was not going to have another season, the writers wrapped things up neatly in the last episode.

So here is the SPOILER ALERT!! SPOILER ALERT!! If you don't want to have it ruined for you stop reading now and go rent this one and only season. I don't think you'll regret it.
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Under the normal dialogue of the final episode there were strange sounds going on...unexplained at first. Finally Sam opens his eyes. He is under glass, in a pod as a matter of fact. The voice of Windy announces he's awake now. Windy is the ship's computer. Pod #2-B (his apartment number remember?) opens and he gets out. He is part of the Aries project (not a toy company after all) and the mission is number 125 (the precinct). It is the year 2035. Interestingly, the looked down upon "No Nuts" Norris is now the Commander. Harvey Keitel gets up and he is Tom Tyler, a Major. (get it? Major Tom? of Bowie song fame?). It is explained that on their two year expedition to Mars each could pick a program of a situation to be in while they were in suspended animation. Sam chose to be a NYC policeman in 2008, and it started out alright but then through computer glitch he had been tossed back to 1973. Also Major Tom is Tyler's father after all. The head of the mission control back on Earth is the guy who was the head of the "Aries Toy Company". He does get to slip in one great line - "I want you to know crew that President Obama wanted to be here in the control room when you woke up....but her father has taken ill and she had to leave." The final scene is Keitel stepping out onto the surface of Mars, but it is not a space boot, but his white shoes.

Good stuff. Very clever and entertaining. Rent it and don't miss this little gem that we all somehow missed in 2008.