Life on Mars.
http://afk2pee.com/blog/?p=685
Did you know this was a David Bowie song? I’m glad I’m actually too young to know that was a David Bowie song. Actually someone thought I was 25 the other day, but that’s besides the point (read - I’ll bring it up again later).
[INDENT]A present-day car accident mysteriously sends a detective back to the 1970s. An American remake of the BBC series.
[/INDENT] If you have no idea what I’m talking about - that’s ok, the rest of the United States has no idea, too. US producers felt that an old BBC tv show needed a US slaughtering, I mean remake. And by old I mean 2006.
Anyone see the US version of Couplings? Ok, it’s not THAT bad, but wow yeah, wasn’t that horrible? Anyway…
You didn’t see that US version on the right, did you? That’s good, you haven’t poked out both your eyes with a spoon and can continue reading my insightful review. Continuing…
This is the US version of Life on Mars. See those people? ^ Yeah they’re not in it anymore, except the guy in the middle. Apparently they retooled the whole damn thing, asked permission from the UK creators to slightly adjust the plot (read - change the fuck out of it) and then changed the characters.
Ok these are the people in the show now. Before I jump into my huge and awesome review, does that guy in the middle look familiar? Does he look like…I don’t know…WESKER?
Jason O’Mara (who played Wesker in Resident Evil 3 or should RE: have never been made). Granted he’s in it all of 2 minutes, but it’s just like the game, minus the bad voice acting (or maybe including it too) but he plays Sam Tyler.
Sam is a present day Detective who’s dating a fellow female Detective, Lisa Bonet (from the Cosby show, I KNOW) and they’re on the cusp of catching a major serial killer. They do, in fact, catch him but on a technicality they have to release him, only to find out that his alibi is his twin brother. His girlfriend finds it out a little too late and is kidnapped and presumably his next victim. While going after said serial killer, Sam gets out of his car only to be called back by his radio. He runs back, grabs the radio and turns to run across the street to enter the killer’s home, only to get his ass ran over.
Next he wakes up in 1973 and that ALONE would terrify me.
In the BBC original you find out that he is in fact in a coma and when he wakes up at the end (I guess it’s already over), he finds life in the present day pales in comparison to the 70’s. Apparently he got hit really hard. So he flings himself from a high balcony and puts himself back in a coma to live out his days in the 70’s. Actually a pretty damn original concept, only the US version is slightly different.
US Sam, so far, is realizing he’s in a coma. Every now and then he hears voices from his doctor, his friends and the proverbial ‘bright light’. As he lives his life in 1973, his conscience keeps railing against the detailed world his mind has created and oddly enough, finds clues to the true ORIGINAL killer he was trying to capture.
The overall premise is still pretty enthralling, it does catch your attention, but the characters within seem thin and in some cases over the top. Take Annie, the psyche degree female cop that they all affectionately call ‘No Nuts’ because…well she has no nuts. The misogynistic and sexist attitudes in the show is done so over the top that it becomes annoying and distracting. If there’s a point, it was killed during EP 1 because EP 2 was just irritating as fuck.
Harvey Keitel plays Lt Hunt, his squad commander and boss for this special little team they have. Kind of reminds me of ‘The Shield’ but only because apparently there is no such thing as witness or suspect rights…hell I don’t even think they’ve uttered one word of the Miranda yet. This is much to Sam’s dismay who’s coming from obviously a little more PC era. He is friends with Annie who respects him but doesn’t want his help. Help is bad in the 70’s.
If you catch the series, I’d say give it a try in hopes that they iron out the extreme personalities and work on placing some of it in the writing. It feels thin and misdirected but ever hopeful. Much like my coffee in the morning.