Rare is the television show that manages to be fresh in its genre, let alone two at the same time.Life on Mars doesn’t just offer an interesting take on time travel stories; it also kicks the modern police procedural in the pants by juxtaposing two different eras of cop shows.
The always engaging John Simm plays Sam Tyler, a cop who’s very much in the Law & Order mold: idealistic, compassionate, clean cut, and intelligent beyond the average. This is a hero that, initially, exists in most of the procedurals we see nowadays. Watching them is often boring because the world they operate in exists for them to solve and conquer. What this show does is yank this character out of that world to drop him in a more challenging one. While in the middle of a case, Tyler is struck by a car in 2006 and wakes up in 1973. No more the suit-and-tie wearing hotshot DCI, he is a leather jacket clad DI on his first day in town—Manchester, that is. He’s used to forensics and perp databases to work a case; now he has to do the same job in a world where a lineup takes place not behind a one-way mirror, but with witness and suspects standing around in the middle of the police station’s cafeteria.
Playing with tropes, Tyler finds himself in a world that’s less real life 1970’s and more cop show 1970’s. The footsteps that the creators closely follow is the seminal Brit series The Sweeney, but for those this side of the pond, imagine a CSI detective dropped in the middle of The French Connection. Despite the presence of an overarching sci-fi mystery, it still has to also work as an episodic police procedural, so this askew dynamic keeps the one-off cases interesting. Tyler always wants to operate on a proper investigative approach, whereas the other cops on his squad are all about gut feelings and occupational entitlement; especially his DCI and sometime partner Gene Hunt, who’s such a stereotypical man’s man that it makes him possibly the most enjoyable TV cop to watch ever.
“We have to be careful or we lose the public’s trust!” Tyler insists at one point.
“We’re the police! Everybody trusts us!” Hunt barks back.
“Not where I’m from…”
It also sometimes acts as a source of complications for the case. Tyler would know the facts of certain crimes because they’re his past, but he can’t prove that he’s right to close a case—if he’s right at all. One episode plays with this by having Tyler spurn an IRA bomb threat because he knows there was no IRA bombing in mainland England until the 1980’s, only for it to blow up in his face.
This feeds further into the primary mystery—the “what is the island?” if you will—of the show, the one that would be the main plot if this were a 2 hour movie. It’s a question that’s asked every episode during the opening sequence: did Sam Tyler really go back in time, or is he in a coma imagining the sort of cops he watched on TV as a child, or is he just a crazy dude in 1973 who thinks he’s from the future? Through 16 excellent episodes, the writers keep dropping clues that would hint at one of those three options, and they really do keep us on our toes, giving a jolt whenever we fall into a lull where we think we’re just watching crime stories.
Life on Mars is a show for fans of genrebenders. It’s a sci-fi mystery masquerading as a police procedural populated with period characters that uses the language of horror movies. In every episode, Tyler would hallucinate or dream cryptic voices in his head, phantom phone calls, television characters addressing him, and visitations from a creepy little girl in red.
Going into season two, clues appear that more or less give Tyler an out, but the question switches to: does he want to? Not only is he in a budding romance with the cute policewoman who helps him through his ordeal, but he’s starting to really enjoy the crass way of policing that he’s adopted. This is mostly thanks to Philip Glenister's portrayal of Gene Hunt, making him irresistibly admirable and hilarious despite his constant stream of homophobic, racist and sexist profanities (which is why, Harvey Keitel or no, remaking this character on US network TV is just stupid). Tyler puts him in his place every so often, but Hunt always gets the last words, and they’re usually immortal:
"You great, soft, sissy, girlie, nancy, French, bender, Man United supporting poof!"
DVD Bonus Features
The set is loaded with production information. Aside from an hour-long "Meet the Lawman" character profiles, all 8 episode of Season One has audio commentaries, while Season Two gets behind-the-scenes featurettes totaling 1.5 hours. Best of the bunch is "The End of Life on Mars," focusing on the writers' task of wrapping up the main mystery of the show and keeping up with audience expectations. The show does end on a perfect note, without overstaying its welcome, which is what you always want to do with cult-like a sci-fi series.
"It's so cool that it ends at two," Simm geeks out in it. "You always want to leave them wanting more."
"Life on Mars: The Complete Collection" is on sale July 6, 2010 and is not rated. Crime-Thriller, Drama, Sci-Fi. Starring John Simm, Philip Glenister.
