Live “Life on Mars”
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- October
- 20
I’m loving this show! In the second ep, called “The real Adventures of the Unreal Sam Tyler,” Sam dove into solving a string of fatal robberies at a check-cashing store. This, after he decided that until he finds out how he jumped from 2008 to 1973, he’s going to do what he does best: catch bad guys.
The scene where Sam, Ray and Hunt chased down criminal Kim Trent was fun, but was anyone else disturbed by the sight of Harvey Keitel in black Speedos? Did you notice how Sam outran his colleagues, probably because America’s physical-fitness mindset—especially in the jogging/running area—hadn’t yet caught on by 1973. 
Keitel, a movie vet, is proving to be a valuable asset to this cast. He’s the perfect actor to play the beyond-gruff Lt. Hunt, who does what many people in today’s climate of political correctness wouldn’t dare to: smack around a guy he knows is guilty and cutting down on inevitable beauracratic red tape by, uh, trimming a few corners. OK, so calling policewoman Annie Norris “No Nuts” in front of everyone else was totally rude, but I’ll overlook that one for now.
Meanwhile, Sam was struggling with “real, unreal” Sam while looking into a cracked mirror. He then saw a flat-screen TV and Maya in the reflection of a window. When he turned around, they were gone. Poor Sam likened his situation to “a sick cosmic joke that everyone seems to be in on but me.” His free-spirited neighbor Windy provided some light moments for our psychologically tortured hero when she brought him lasagna (OK, so it was laced with pot….) and got him to dance.
The most amusing pieces of time-related dialogue: when Trent said to Sam, “All hail the Nixon administration,” and Sam replied under his breath, “Don’t get too attached;” when Sam likened the smell of Trent’s jail cell to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba and dim bulb Det. Chris Skelton said, “I’ve never been to Puerto Rico;” a mention of Elvis four years before his death; the Charlie perfume theme song; and Gilbert O’Sullivan’s song “Get Down.”
Here what I DON’T UNDERSTAND! What does that little contraption that scoots around the floor have to do with anything—especially when one turned up in the heroin shipment? Someone, please explain.
This show proves that it’s not relying on a one-trick pony—a 2008 guy dealing with being hurtled back to 1973 part—to hold its audience. The cop storyline was also a solid part of this episode, and young June (Heather Matarazzo of “Now and Again”) provided a twist at the end when it turned out that she was infatuated with Kim Trent and helped him carry out his robberies.
And I must agree with that weird old woman when she told Sam that he looks like Steve McQueen. I think he also resembles Aiden Quinn. Anyone else?
P.S.: Is it just a coincidence that the lead character in the TV series “Quantum Leap,” which also involved time traveling, was named Sam? 
This Thursday, on “My Maharishi is Bigger Than Your Maharishi,” the murder of a returning Vietnam vet has Lt. Hunt outraged, which won’t be a pretty sight. As Sam and the squad’s team of detectives explore the circumstances surrounding the homicide, Tyler is sent down a mysterious path that may provide clues about his own family’s past and why he is back in 1973. (Photos courtesy of ABC.)
This entry was posted
on Monday, October 20th, 2008 at 3:27 pm by Jenny Higgons.
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