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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Life On Mars

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13:31 / 11.04.07

So they foreshadowed the next series with Sam recording the tape and then sending it off to pysch "who are recording the experiences of coma victims" or something?

14:55 / 11.04.07

Couldn't agree more about the look of Frank Morgan. Spot on perfect and a magnetic performance. It's probably been mentioned earlier in the thread, sorry if I missed it, but Frank Morgan was the name of an actor/Vaudvillian most famous for playing the part of...oh what was it again?

Regrettable Juvenilia

15:08 / 11.04.07

And of course, David Bowie's 'Starman' famously lifts the tune wholesale from 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow', arguably quite deliberately due to certain themes, c.f. the video for 'Ashes To Ashes'...

miss wonderstarr

20:34 / 12.04.07

Thanks for these really perceptive comments, Flyboy in particular ~ I've just caught the final episode and to my shame didn't register the echoes of Doom Patrol, despite that being one of my favourite single comic issues ever.

I couldn't help thinking ~ and this is prompted partly by a comment I just read on another forum ~ that the 1973 reunion was a little idealised and too-simple. "Go to her!" The kiss, at last. All the lads dealing perfect banter, and Sam smilingly entering into it. Come on gang, another case to solve! Ha ha ha ha! Like the jolly end of a 70s cartoon. I can't recall now if there's any ambiguity or shadow at the end of Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy returns home, or whether it really is a plain happy ending, but this finale, with all the pals playing their parts just so, seemed neater and more of a fantasy than the previous 1973.

Which isn't to suggest any theory that Sam hasn't gone back to the same fictionverse as previously, but it's just that it seems as though, now he accepts it, it embraces him and it's kinder to him than ever before.

The only other trivia I have to add is that Nelson refers to some people walking through life like a "sunken dream" ~ a lyric from Life on Mars. And has it been mentioned? The Hyde proposal to replace Gene's crew was also called M.A.R.S. Which all contributes to the notion that the Geneverse really is a construct. It'd be fitting if the new heroine of Ashes to Ashes constructs it slightly differently ~ and if there's one flash of light, but no smoking pistol, whoh-whohh, etc.

22:28 / 12.04.07

W: Which isn't to suggest any theory that Sam hasn't gone back to the same fictionverse as previously, but it's just that it seems as though, now he accepts it, it embraces him and it's kinder to him than ever before.

Well, yeah, because he rewrites it - or his role in it, at least. There's always been a defined role for Sam in the fiction, it's just that he's never accepted it before, never allowed himself to play it. Now that he has, there's no reason for the fiction to fight against him.

Flybs> Just caught the end of the episode again and you're right, Chris does apologise to Sam. He doesn't specify what for, though, other than chucking stuff from his desk onto the floor. Neither Chris nor any of the others even mention Hyde, which is what makes me (want to) think that Sam's erased it - otherwise, Ray making an attempt to build some kind of bridge right at the end doesn't fit with anything we've discovered of that character from the previous episodes.

W: The only other trivia I have to add is that Nelson refers to some people walking through life like a "sunken dream" ~ a lyric from Life on Mars.

I think the key thing with Nelson in the last episode is when Sam returns to 1973 and walsk into the pub - the line is something along the lines of "welcome back" or "nice to see you've returned". Can't remember exactly now, but it's that sentiment. As far as Nelson the pub landlord's concerned, though, Sam was never going anywhere, so it can't be anything but a comment on his jumping between worlds.

I'd be interested in going back through the two series now and seeing if, with the benefit of hindsight, there's even the slightest hint that this was what it was leading up to. I suspect not, but am open to being pleasantly surprised.

miss wonderstarr

23:15 / 12.04.07

Has anyone mentioned Iain Banks' The Bridge on this thread, or, if they have, explored any parallels? Because it's based around a similar idea. Unfortunately, I haven't read the novel for over 10 years, but the protagonist is [spoilers] in a coma and fantasises an entire SF-type life as part of a civilisation within a gigantic bridge.

02:51 / 13.04.07

Personally, the "I never liked that channel" moment seemed key for me -- even moreso than the leap.

It's interesting to read that Matthew Graham and John Simm have, apparently, different takes on the ending.

The present-day scenes reminded me more than a little of the ending of Soderbergh's take on Solaris -- that drifting, detached feeling; the ostensibly mundane as more unreal than the more fantastic elements...

miss wonderstarr

05:52 / 13.04.07

Although the detached, affectless feeling of drifting through a flat, grey real life could also be rationalised as depression, if you wanted to read it that way ~ in which case Sam "really" commits suicide and the Geneverse of 73 is the fantasy he generates in his moment, perhaps never-ending, of death.

Didn't he try to jump off the (same?) rooftop in the first episode, but in 1973, to catapult himself back to the present day? As I remember, he didn't do it because Annie turned up. Sam's let his present-day romance go and got a kind of closure with the only other important person in his modern life, his mother.

On the other hand, the "present day" seemed implausible in numerous ways ~ Sam coming round with only a suited surgeon there, and getting dressed immediately, walking out of the hospital after being in a coma for weeks... I think hospitals have more procedure than that. It almost seemed that 2006 was a flat fantasy, Sam's fantasy of going "home" and "waking up" finally realised and disappointingly sketchy, perhaps because he can't remember what it's actually like and what was worth returning to.

Which would suggest he's still in the coma, constructing both 73 and 05... which I think is geekery too far, as the ending was, I expect, meant just to be interestingly ambiguous rather than to have a clear logic.

08:30 / 13.04.07

Can we just say 1973 is Narnia and Gene is Aslan? Please?

Actually, 1973 as presented in the show reminds me of the split in the role-playing game Nobilis. Simply, there's the prosaic world (the flat world) and the mythic world were things happen on a symbolic - or more important emotionally - level.

To that end Sam has gone back to a mythic 1973 where he can make the content of it all better, on a symbolic level if not a 'really real' one, which seems to bleed into the present.

09:50 / 13.04.07

I think Gene's in a coma, and it's all in his mind.

10:19 / 13.04.07

Ms. Wonderstar -- yeah, the "you have a tumor -- but it's totally benign!" bit seemed a little too good to be true.

I do believe that that is the same rooftop shown in the first episode -- really liked the parallels there.

One of the things that worries me about "Ashes to Ashes" is the fact that it will (I assume) remove the ambiguity about a few things, and I really like the fact that the finale did a good job of creating an ending that can be read in an impressive variety of ways.

Whisky Priestess

10:26 / 13.04.07

If they write it carefully and avoid mentioning Sam too much they can weasel their way around Tyler references while preserving the ambiguity of Life on Mars.

Me, I just want to see Gene Hunt dealing with some New Romantic armed robbers.

miss wonderstarr

10:42 / 13.04.07

The whole idea that Sam had a tumour seemed to be a coma-retrofit on his part, anyway. He'd been hit by a car. For him to suddenly embrace the idea that he had a real-life cancer, and that Gene was his subconscious' metaphor for that cancer, seemed like a desperate rewriting. But again, on his part. Doesn't necessarily mean the writing was inconsistent.

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:46 / 13.04.07

On the other hand, the "present day" seemed implausible in numerous ways ~ Sam coming round with only a suited surgeon there, and getting dressed immediately, walking out of the hospital after being in a coma for weeks... I think hospitals have more procedure than that.

I think this is just editing. But in general I agree that Sam's present has changed in slightly convenient ways for the plot - for example, the girlfriend he's so keen to save in the first episode has gone, and I'll have to watch that first episode again, but I'm sure he had friends, or colleagues he got on with, who are now absent - I guess maybe he just can't relate to them anymore.

Very relieved to read Matthew Graham saying it was written and should be seen as a very personal character study, 'cos it would be really easy to interpret that scene where Sam zones out and cuts his thumb as saying that modern day policework is not only too beauraucratic, but also too, uh oh, "politically correct". I actually think the show does have some pretty dodgy ideas about this, but in a sense they're almost too confused to be worrying - and the extent to which it's made clear that Gene's world is fantasy helps here, too - the sneaky admiration for his "whatever it takes to put away the scum" approach is an admiration for 70s TV cops, not real 70s cops.

miss wonderstarr

12:16 / 13.04.07

I had some thoughts about that, too: Sam's embracing of 1973 Gene Genieverse does seem to imply that he also accepts all the sexism, racism and homophobia (and corruption, and brutality) that he's been tiredly but consistently opposing all this time. When Gene calls him some elaborate form of fairy-nancy-boy in the car, just before they blast off down the yellow brick alleyway, Sam just happily grins "such elegant banter". I don't know if it's worth reading too much into this, but it's a bit jarring that Sam's been convinced over the last 50 mins that Gene's a cancer, a corrupt, filthy, scumbag, and now he's a loveable rogue. If Sam willingly becomes part of the 1973 gang, and stops fighting it, doesn't that suggest he's also going to stop correcting their racist remarks, and trying to ensure Annie gets more respect (she's safely in the role of Sam's bird now, in Gene's eyes) ~ and even gives up on introducing modern police methods?

13:57 / 13.04.07

I'll have to re-watch it, but I thought Sam fired off two or three "stop it, that's wrong" lines at Gene as they drove off into the sunset - enough for me to think at the time that it was deliberately scripted to make it clear that Sam hadn't changed his views on that sort of thing.

miss wonderstarr

14:31 / 13.04.07

If that's true, fair enough. It just seems a little problematic that "1973" is being presented as the better world, when we've seen it consistently as a place where the good guys, or at least the best guys we've got, are incredibly prejudiced.

14:31 / 13.04.07

If he knows for certain that the whole thing's a fantasy, or imaginary world or whatever, would the racism, sexism and so on necessarily bother him as much, when it's as if Christopher Robbin decided to stay with Pooh, Piglet and the rest of them after all.

There was interesting parallel with 'Vanilla Sky' (which must have been an influence - I don't know if it's been mentioned before) at the end of this, I thought in that the conclusion there sees Tom Cruise leaping off a tall building to go back to the real world; the inversion of that here was quite a sweetly nihiilistic touch.

14:34 / 13.04.07

(Not that I'm saying Pooh and Piglet were reactionary old Tories.)

miss wonderstarr

14:51 / 13.04.07

Ah, I didn't get the impression Sam thought "1973" was pure fantasy, but that's equally possible. I suppose I assumed he'd just decided 73 felt more real, more alive and more vivid (and more fun, and sexy) and that it now held more for him than 2006 ~ so whether it was his coma-creation or not, he wanted to go back there.

miss wonderstarr

14:57 / 13.04.07

Still a bit odd that Sam, who's been quick to accept the idea that Gene is a terrible, corrupt tumour (even though this was a means to an end of getting back "home", which he thought he wanted more than anything) and who has apparently been sickened by the attitudes he encounters among his workmates, would be suddenly so eager to live his life with Gene and the prejudices of 1973. I mean, it must be very hard work for him, and kind of depressing, to constantly encounter jokes about darkies and to hear women (especially Annie) being constantly demeaned, patronised and objectified. Despite all the fun and the action (and the sex) 1973 promises him, it would also be pretty grim to have to keep butting up against those prejudices, or to keep silent and tacitly accept them. Maybe Sam thinks he can slowly shape and change his friends' attitudes, but I don't think we've seen much evidence of that. (Some, admittedly).

Also, look at the room he's going to have to sleep in for the rest of his life!

15:26 / 13.04.07

I suppose I was half-expecting Sam to try and look up the records for 1973, or possibly even track down Gene etc personally once he got back to the present. That would have seemed like the logical step anyway, if he wasn't already pretty sure the whole thing was a strange dream.

Although that would presumably apply to the 'real world' he wakes up to, equally.

Oh well. If only the whole series could have been this interesting.

miss wonderstarr

15:35 / 13.04.07

That's true. I fully expected LoM to jump the shark around series 2, episode 7; it's been a disappointing follow-up in my opinion, and it still jars (me) that the whole grand story arc about Sam's father was almost retconned or amnesiaced out of existence in series 2. It's too obvious, still, that it was all meant to end after just eight episodes. However, the last episode pulled a blinder by making the whole series seem worthwhile and interesting again.

15:54 / 13.04.07

Sam's embracing of 1973 Gene Genieverse does seem to imply that he also accepts all the sexism, racism and homophobia (and corruption, and brutality) that he's been tiredly but consistently opposing all this time.

I think part of the attraction for 1973 is that there's something for Sam to get his teeth into, ism-battling-wise. The 2006 nick is already a world made in Sam's image, all forensics, psychological profiles and meetings about ethics; it doesn't need him. As Gene points out on more than one occasion, Sam rather gets off on being 'the last honest cop in Dodge City'. This way, he gets the constant ego boost of always being the moral high ground.

Also, one of the weaknesses of the second series for me has been a tendency to make Gene more or less flawed purely to fit the plot. In episode 2 he steadfastly refuses to let his old mentor get away with murder, yet by episode 6 he's happily turning people over to Toolbox to off. In the best eps, it's clear that while Gene is a deeply problematic and reactionary bloke, he has lines he will not cross, and ultimately, his heart's in the right place.

Bearing that in mind, I'd say the turning point for Sam is when he says to Morgan 'If this is real, then Gene has a life'. Like a lot of the audience, Sam can't help liking Gene, despite everything.

(also, can I pinch the phrase Gene Genieverse? Because, yay!)

miss wonderstarr

16:11 / 13.04.07

Thank fuck someone likes the "Genieverse" coinage I've been trying to tout over the last two pages!

08:03 / 15.04.07

There is something that's bothering me about the setup for Ashes to Ashes, though;

Alex suddenly finds herself in 1981 interacting with familiar characters, not just from her own life-time, but also from the detailed reports logged by none other than Sam Tyler[...]

Fair enough, it's good to have linkage between the two characters. But surely the detailed reports logged by Sam Tyler would validate whether he's in 1973 or 2006/7, therefore invalidating the ambiguous, 'Take what you want from it' ending that worked well for Life on Mars?

14:10 / 15.04.07

So unfortunately the sequel rather scuppers this, but in the last couple of episodes I'd started to wonder if you weren't actually supposed to be legitimately unsure about which reality was real, ie. is it the one in which he gets hit by a car and wakes up in the past and has to get back to the present, or is it the one where he has a breakdown on his way to an undercover job that gives him an experience of living in the future. Bluntly, one version is that he's not mad and he's not in a coma and he's not in the past. He's living in his future through the series, and might have been mad / in a coma / in the future before the series begins and briefly in the final episode.

I quite liked the possibility of that reading - sort of like that episode of Buffy, except where in the Buffy episode it's actually surprisingly clear that she's actually nuts and goes into her fantasy, where here you're genuinely not supposed to know which narrative is the 'original'. Then he's left with the option of simply choosing one to live in and chooses the 1970s because of his friends and relationships and sense of being alive.

As to what people have said about his comfort in living back in the past where homophobia and racism and everything are very much in play, I don't know what to think about this. The idea that the present is antiseptic and the past is vibrant and alive does genuinely worry me, it does seem to be saying that the past was better than now (and the 70s at that!) replete with power cuts, bad politics and general right-wing lunacies.

Having said all of that, if you get into it, what it's actually talking about is human relationships, and I think you could probably make an argument that British life has got less community focused, less friendly and more lonely (or maybe that's just my experience of it). Perhaps that's what it's about - longing for friends and social connections. Still, it is genuinely weird.

Very interested to see how they approach 1981, and more than a little nervous about them following the Bowie theme into another sequel. EIght years down the line would be 1989 and the series would probably be called 'Tin Machine' or taking the theme into the nineties 'Little Wonder' or 'Hallo, Spaceboy' neither of which fill me with glee.

14:18 / 15.04.07

The idea that the present is antiseptic and the past is vibrant and alive does genuinely worry me

Not invalidating your worry here, Tom, but the writer/director does go into this somewhat in one of the interviews linked in this thread; that, as Life of Mars is an in-depth character study, the ending (living in 1973 for good) is what's better for Sam, not for society. As someone pointed out at the beginning of this thread, Sam's very ernest, very VERY ernest and more than a little up-tight sometimes. 1973, real or not, is what lets him cut-loose and embrace his inner-Sweeney, losing some of his baggage in the process.

Still wondering about the Incredible Disappearing Girlfriend, however (and the implication of Sam dropping his Indian-descent girlfriend for his new, white girlfriend. Hm)

14:20 / 15.04.07

Wasn't the point that she rather dumped him a couple of episodes before? As a result he had no attachments and no reason to return?

15:36 / 15.04.07

Yeah she tells Sam that she has to move on.

17:13 / 15.04.07

Ah, I thang yew.

miss wonderstarr

17:35 / 15.04.07

Sam's very ernest, very VERY ernest and more than a little up-tight sometimes. 1973, real or not, is what lets him cut-loose and embrace his inner-Sweeney, losing some of his baggage in the process.

This still sounds like a story about someone being "too PC" (lol. lol) and learning to relax and let a few gags about benders, tarts and turbans go, between mates. I'm not sure if it makes a big difference that it's just the story about one individual, given that this individual was the closest we had to a "hero" protagonist (and that the second closest we had to a "hero" was an obviously, supposedly endearingly sexist, racist homophobe).

I don't want to seem uptight about this myself, as like many people I did like the character of Gene a lot ~ and maybe my attitude towards him is like Sam's, in that yes, I suppose I learned to love the guy despite his faults. But I don't see that presenting this as the story of just one individual really changes much. Most stories in Anglo-American culture focus on the individual. It's through those stories about individuals that ideological notions are put across.

20:43 / 15.04.07

Life on Mars is where good coppers go when they die. Everybody gets a different one. Gene Hunt's like St Peter, or God or something. Makes perfect sense to me.

miss wonderstarr

20:48 / 15.04.07

I don't feel that Hyde should exist for DCI Alex Drake, according to any kind of internal logic. Sam Tyler created Hyde from his specific position in Hyde Ward. Alex Drake will, unless she's in the same ward, be entering Genieverse from a different angle and should, according to my understanding of the show at least, interact with a slightly different alt-world that responds to her own present-day issues and concerns (eg. stuff about her daughter). Of course, setting it in the 80s does address this. But unless she gets "Hyde" from reading Sam's notes, I'm not sure how that could factor in to her fantasy.

20:56 / 15.04.07

I don't think there'll be a Hyde.

Ashes to Ashes is set in London.

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