Experience “Life on Mars”
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- October
- 10
Finally — a broadcast-TV show whose premise contains more than a shred of originality.
OK, so “Life on Mars,” which debuted last night on ABC, is derived from a British show of the same name, but that’s far enough from Hollywood for me. Jason O’Mara headlines as Sam Tyler, a present-day NYPD detective who, after getting hit by a speeding car, is thrust back in time to 1973, when he would have been 3 years old. Same job title, same Sam. The differences? He’s a transfer from a police department upstate New York, everyone’s clothes, the forensic technology, and the social and sexual attitudes.
The show’s two main supporting cast members—if you want to describe these notables as
“supporting” — are Michael Imperioli (“The Soprano”), as Sam’s cynical and scruffy partner, and film vet Harvey Keitel, as the violence-prone and ill-tempered head of homicide. And we can’t count out filmdom’s Gretchen Mol (“3:10 to Yuma”) as an Annie Norris, an ambitious policewoman yearning to be considered more than a token and/or the scullery maid at the 125th squad.
With a gritty look and tone similar to “NYPD Blue,” “Mars” is set in a reeling and roiling Manhattan. The debut episode was called “Out Here In the Fields” (yes, The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” did pop up at one point in the show. P.S.: For the longest time, I thought that song was called “Teenage Wasteland.â€) and didn’t shove the 1970s in our faces like last summer’s dopey “Swingtown.†It was more subtle, such as seeing a guy cross the street with a transistor radio glued to his ear, Sam’s using a rotary phone.
One exchange between characters reminded me of a scene from “Back to the Future,” where Marty asks the 1950s soda shop clerk for a Tab, and the guy replies something like, “What tab? You haven’t bought anything.” It was when Sam ordered a diet Coke and the bartender answered back that Coke doesn’t come in “diet{ form. Then there was when Sam yelled, “I need my cell” and the man he’s talking to says, “You need to sell what?” Then there was, “Where’s my computer?” and a squad mate chortles, “Like Hal from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’?” But the real blow-us-away moment was when Sam looked up in awe at the Twin Towers. That one gave me the chills. But it was pretty funny when Sam and Annie walked into a record store and Sam sweeps out his arms and tells her, “One day it will all be digital!”
Poor Sam doesn’t know where he is, as far as if he’s dead, in a coma, time-traveling, dreaming…? (In the British version, it turned out that he’d been in a coma.) Creepiness ensues when a doctor on TV seems to be talking directly to him and about his grave condition. Sam also hears his 2008 girlfriend Maya (“Cosby†kid Lisa Bonet) talking to him on the police radio.
As for the storyline itself, Sam’s 2008 case—catching a serial killer—cleverly seeped into 1973 as Sam tracked down the murderer, then about only 8 years old, and, he hopes, stopped him from becoming a serial killer by deglamourizing the boys image a deranged psycho neighbor whom the boy idolized.
The “Mars†press material says that each episode will have its own crime to deal with, but it’s certain that each one will also have Sam hearing and seeing stuff from his 2008 life and wonder what the hell is happening to himself. Also let it be known that David Kelley—a guy with a track record of successes—was the series’ original producer. The new producers helmed the dull “October Road.†Perhaps they’ll make up for that bore with this brand-new “Life.â€
(Photos: courtesy of ABC.)
This entry was posted
on Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 9:09 am by Jenny Higgons.
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Loved it!!! This is my new fave! Music is awesome too!
I really liked it. I never felt like it was just another cop show, but rather it had something more to offer. I am looking forward to see if they can carry it forward to the next few episodes.