Life on Mars - Complete BBC Series 1-2 (New Packaging) [DVD]

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Upon Sam Tyler awaking in 1973, he finds himself on a building site, beneath a large advertising board, proclaiming the construction of a new motorway, the Mancunian Way. Sam also encounters as their younger selves people whom he knows in the future, including suspects, friends, his own parents, and himself as a child.

At some point, a time traveler would assimilate; somewhere along the way on a homicide investigation, he'd cease to be a man out of time and go with the program. He wakes up in 1973, as a Detective Inspector newly assigned to Manchester CID from Hyde, and finding that he now has to work with a wholly unreconstructed masculine Detective Chief Inspector in the form of Gene Hunt, in a department rife with misogyny, petty corruption, a disregard for paperwork and red tape, and reeking of cigarette smoke and cheap aftershave. In several episodes, Gene Hunt adopts the name "Gene Genie", in reference to yet another Bowie song, " The Jean Genie", used in the fourth episode. While it does give Sam the opportunity to save a woman whom he knows he has failed to protect down the line, this direct interaction through time struck me as overdoing what need not be escalated. The brown Ford Cortina used by Gene throughout both of the seasons was a 1974 model, which makes it anachronistic.This past fall, ABC attempted to remake the British cop drama Life on Mars for an American audience, transplanting the action from Manchester to New York. Edmund Butt is interviewed primarily about the music that he composed, although he touches tangentially on the eclectic period soundtrack of 70s tunes chosen for the show.

Throughout the course of Life on Mars, Sam's uncertainty is reinforced by frequent paranormal phenomena, such as hearing voices and seeing images from 2006 on radios, telephones, and televisions. Suspects are regularly roughed up and, depending on their mood, witnesses are antagonized or buttered up.Of course the joy of Life on Mars is i There are some faults to be found--the colors are a little off, there is some minor problems with resolution--but overall this is a fairly good presentation of a recent television program. Sadly the ending of the Series 2 felt a bit rushed and didn't answer all the questions but we have 3 Series of Ashes to Ashes to watch to get a proper closure. I was still in infant school when that decade ended, and I only remember the good things about the years of the seventies that I lived through, the Muppet Show on TV, hot summers, being carried on my dad’s shoulders, trips to the beach, innocent entertainment from people on telly who thirty years later would wind up accused, and in some cases convicted of sexual offences. Their remarks are quieter and sparser, providing some inside information and observations, but not much.