It's 1973, it's almost dinnertime, I'm 'avin' 'oops. (Life on Mars Series 2)

I am as excited as I was about L O S T and Heroes (i.e. very).

This means I'll have to wait for whenever BBC America decides to start airing this season of "Life On Mars" and that when they finally do, I'll only ever get to see the edited-for-commercials version. :(

it clashes with CSI and Never Did Me No Harm (on ch4 where 4 families take all the electronic toys away from their kids for a couple of weeks. which is kinda like life on mars in it's own way. or the Amish sketch on Fist Of Fun). luckily it doesn't clash with Dog Borstal.

they didn't have video recorders in 1973 either...

Will John Sims get called a QUITTER a la Ecclestone for jumping ship and moaning about the long hours/spending time away from his family/typcast/blah blah ?

Does he do this? I never read interviews with actors anymore. None of them has anything interesting to say except Paul Bettany and Hugh Laurie, who both at least have the good grace to continue to be pleased that they don't actually have to work a proper job.

i'm looking forward to this but our TV reviewer says it's a bit shit; a lot of the spark has gone.

as discussed everywhere on the internet and in pubs, will they do an early 90s spin-off called 'Miracle Goodnight'?

Not too sure about all new touchy feely hugglez Gene Hunt though.

(massive points off for Sam's invention of the stinger - bit reminiscent of Gary "Goodnight Sweetheart" Sparrow claiming to have written the entire Beatles back catalogue during WWII)

bit reminiscent of Gary "Goodnight Sweetheart" Sparrow claiming to have written the entire Beatles back catalogue during WWII

That was the only good joke I ever saw in Goodnight Sweetheart!

I had to watch both as next week I'll be seeing Pan's Labyrinth at the picture house (which is like something outta 1973 itself).

Okay, okay, I'm not. You're right. Dammit.

Erm, are we all BBC4ing then? I can't next week, so I'll be behind and IT'S MY THREAD GODAMMIT SO DON'T SPOIL IT FOR ME *LALALALALA*

Ach, I don't know. I just meant no spoilers from whoever was tootling about on the Doctor Who thread going "haha, I know what happens in the last episode".

I could be imagining it but this series feels more authentically '70s' than the last. What I mean, mainly, is: there seems to be a lot more smoking/rooms thick with ciggie smoke.

I am surprised some people can even follow Life on Mars.

And, is there some kind of BBC law that Marc Warren has to make an appearance in every single drama series? Not that I don't like him, but I don't have to look at him all the time.

(there were hints of sci-fi elements in ep 2, with Glen thinking he knew Sam Tyler's name, but not where from - he knew he'd come from "Hyde" though...I'm pretty sure "Hyde" is going to be something other than an area of Manchester)

I assume they're meant to be a Robert Louis Stevenson reference though. Hyde = the monster lurking in Sam's subconscious.

Yeah, who doesn't love "you are surrounded by armed BASTARDS!"

if they do this '80s one, i have a pitch: why not the yorkshire moors in the '60s?

("you are surrounded by armed BASTARDS!" was on the trailer, though)

the first one was a lot better than i expected, anyway: deftly handled time-slip spookiness, people being thrown off roofs and a nice little cliffhanger at the end. couldn't ask for much more. i'm becoming obsessed with the architecture and design of the police station: it's so terrifyingly, gloriously brutalist. does anyone know any more about it? i'm assuming they created a set, but it must have been based on something; i'd love to know what.

good to see they'd got proper seventies allegros this time too, not the eighties models they had last time :)

philip glenister popped up again on BBC4 narrating "timeslip", about the three-day week. he is obviously now the authentic voice of the seventies.

and parts of ancoats where i used to play.

(wikipedia has a list)

You think you're bad. I spent most of the second episode trying to work out if they'd put new seatbelts in the car, because the seatbelt didn't have that lovely slight slackness around the top that ye olde seatbelts used to have.

Plus there was one lamp that Marc Warren had in his office that I really wanted.

The events of the first episode last night introduced some interesting (YMMV) issues wrt plot and continuity. What it appears to establish is that the events of 1973 can alter the events in the present day, but that any 'end state' will remain. From yesterday, for example, Marc Warren's character is originally being investigated by Tyler and has raped and killed his wife. He then puts Sam in hospital (possibly) and is torturing him in hospital. After being put away in the mental home in 1973 he still tortures Sam in the present but this is because he has escaped from the mental home. But it does also mean he can't have arranged the 'accident' that put Sam in hospital because he wasn't there to do so and his vendetta was of a different nature anyway. But the 'accident' ('end state' 1) still happens so Sam is in the hospital, and the torture ('end state' 2) still happens, but with different motivation.

This, however, introduces problems. There is now no sense of relief, or resolution, to S1E1. In fact, it makes the whole issue far more complex. We now know that only the 'end states' of there being a serial killer and Sam's girlfriend going missing are retained. Sam's actions in ensuring the killer is kept in mental hospital and not released to go on the killing spree actually mean that in the present day the case has completely changed - it must now be some other event that has no relation to the events in 1973 - and so Sam has achieved nothing other than corrupt his morals. A similar issue exists with the second episode last night, in that all we can say for sure is that the 'end state' position of his boss dying is all that is retained. It may well be that he carried on the Charlie Williams act for the rest of his career after perceiving Sam's "advice" to be racist bullying and was promoted through some anti-discrimination drive, but the important bit is that we don't and never can know, and neither does Sam. So again, the events of the episode achieve nothing.

Completely separately, Hyde is entirely possibly from Stevenson as pointed out above. The fact Gene Hunt seems to be exactly the opposite of Sam at the outset, and everything he despises in a policeman, but by the current stage they seem to realise they need to work symbiotically, and are stronger together than apart and can learn from each other, seems thematically strongly linked. Let's not also forget the etymology of Hyde is from 'hide'.

On a different topic, these rumours about Ashes To Ashes confuse things massively. If true, this means this is a real 1973 (because a spin off happening in the main character's head when the main character no longer is there is faintly ridiculous) and Sam has somehow actually moved there in time - causing issues around things like the TV talking to him , unless one of my wild arsed theories is right. And without further ado...

Wild arsed speculation and theorising:

1) The guy on the other end of Hyde 2612 is a doctor in the present day

This is possible, I suppose, but I don't know about the likes of deep hypnosis on people in PVS to comment to fully. Is it credible that it could be concluded that you could recover from PVS but there are pychological barriers that need removing first - "the rules"?

2) The guy on the other end of Hyde 2612 is Sam's dad in the present day

We don't know anything about what happened after the end of S1, or even where Sam's dad is in the present day. The actual physical redemption of his dad (as opposed to the psychological one in S1) may be the trigger to his return, but Sam may have to change the interim before the 'end state' in that scenario to allow this redemption to happen. This would certainly provide a tidy thematic link between the two series (or the finales of them) and would satisfy a relatively standard TV trope.

3) The guy on the other end of Hyde 2612 is Sam, post PVS

This is, I think, the most likely. Sam has recovered to a degree, but 'remembers' what he went through in order to 'escape' out of 1973 and wants to help Sam get there, but certain things have to happen to allow for it - "the rules". A possible pointer to this is the issues around Sam's eyesight and migraines we have seen in this series - Hyde 2612 is, with a small bit of geographic jiggery-pokery, the telephone number of Stockoprt Hospital for the Blind (according to google). Sam loses his sight while in PVS and tries to avoid making the same mistakes in 1973 that he thinks leads to it?

4) Sam is really in 1973, and is actually mad

This would be my preferred ending, but it's possibly too downbeat. The whole thing about the future was a dream, or a psychotic episode (possibly an epileptic fit of sorts?) which he recovered from when he is discovered in S1E1 - or perhaps this was the "incident in Hyde" that was talked about last night - and all the other items (test card girl, radio broadcasts, telephone calls) are just symptoms of his madness.

Thoughts?

Also, I do not think you can recover from PVS. I think that technically he must be in a coma, and people do think that you can communicate with people in comas. PVS (I think, but I am not a doctor) means you have no brain activity, which he must do, or nobody would be trying to communicate with him.

But it does also mean he can't have arranged the 'accident' that put Sam in hospital because he wasn't there to do so and his vendetta was of a different nature anyway. But the 'accident' ('end state' 1) still happens so Sam is in the hospital, and the torture ('end state' 2) still happens, but with different motivation.

I sincerely hope the people writing this programme are putting as much thought into these questions as you are.

I don't understand, this just sounds like "you can change some stuff except sometimes you can't". Is there anything special about the "end state" facts?

Also, I do not think you can recover from PVS. I think that technically he must be in a coma, and people do think that you can communicate with people in comas. PVS (I think, but I am not a doctor) means you have no brain activity, which he must do, or nobody would be trying to communicate with him.

Oh, no, you can! My favourite news story of the last few years

I must admit, my main reason for assuming he is PVS and not in a coma is the issue over his mother being asked to turn off his life support. I was under the impression that you couldn't do this legally in Britain without PVS being declared and a year having elapsed (NHS Direct website seems to support this, and also that it can be recovered from). It says:

Vegetative state is caused as a result of severe injury to the part of the brain that controls thought and personality. A person in a vegetative state may seem to be awake and reflex responses may remain, but it is widely accepted that they have no awareness of their surroundings and that they are incapable of feeling mental distress or physical pain. It is common after someone has been in a coma.
There is no treatment that can stop the effects of a vegetative state, but some people do make a recovery.
However, many people will only gain some awareness, or are permanently brain damaged if they do recover.
A person who has been in a vegetative state for more than one month is said to be in a persistent vegetative state. This is then considered permanent after a year. Recovery becomes less likely the longer the person is in a vegetative state.
The BMA recommends that there should be a high standard of nursing care, good nutrition and stimulation should be available to people in a vegetative state.
After about a year, doctors may decide that the person's condition is irreversible, and that keeping them alive is not in their best interests and consideration may be given to withdrawal of treatment. In England, any decision to stop a person's care will need to be made by the courts.

This seems to imply to me Sam has left his coma, but is unresponsive to anything at the hospital. That said, I can't find anything on when you can turn off support in a coma so it's conceivable the same rules could apply (although it's be a wonder of writing to show him recover from a coma he's been in for over a year without any vegetative state effects).

I suspect it is just me putting this much thought in. ;__;

Not PVS! I only say this because I abstracted an article recently in which a neurologist was basically complaining about not being allowed to do things like take blood donations or organs from people in PVS, given that there was NO WAY they were ever going to come out of it and people should just stop kidding themselves. Although it could be just semantics.

I am paraphrasing, of course.

I don't understand, this just sounds like "you can change some stuff except sometimes you can't". Is there anything special about the "end state" facts?

Well, you know how in a different programme, or in Back to the Future, or some other time travel meet up scenario, when Sam had changed the past, the bloke would most likely just melt away in the future. But he didn't. He was still there, torturing Sam, but he got there by a different route than the original one. Meaning he can't change the end state, just the means. I found that pretty bleak, actually.

I don't know. Again, it's possible the writers are not thinking as hard about his condition as you/we are. However, it occurs to me that he must be showing some signs of reaction or brain activity in order (as you say) for them to keep his life support switched on, and for them to keep trying to get through to him.

But who is trying to get through to him? If it turns out to be Whoopi Goldberg, I shall be vexed.

with blokey coming back as a mental patient to kill sam -- was this a 'totally random' attack of a madman, or did sam in fact set in train this course of events, making him an enemy, and the attack one of revenge?

Right! That's what I found bleak about this. Sam caused the attack by changing the time line.

Meaning he can't change the end state, just the means. I found that pretty bleak, actually.

Yeah, but he has changed the end state to an extent - there are psych ward records somewhere that weren't there before, for example.

time travel, eh? fraught with difficulties.

fwiw, i think the best way to deal with these issues is just to accept them. i mean, let's not forget: time travel doesn't actually exist. therefore the parameters by which it "works" and by which events are changed are defined solely by the writers. so let's just roll with it, shall we?

episode two was, by any standards, absolutely fucking brilliant. genuinely powerful drama. philip glenister was quite, quite staggering. indeed, i'm considering running my department at work (roughly the same size as the detective team) in a gene hunt stylee :)

Haven't watched Series 1 since it was on, but he definitely told his mother to put money on Red Rum for the National and I'm pretty convinced he told someone about Hillsborough or something as well? So I think we can probably discount the he's not actually from the future theory - some things he's said go beyond just imagining what the enlightened future is like.

(OK, we thought he was going to get Marc Warren sent down for life but with parole he'd be out and gunning for him by 2006/7 anyway. I like the "change the means but the outcome remains" thing)

You think you're bad. I spent most of the second episode trying to work out if they'd put new seatbelts in the car

Ha, one of the other things that marks Sam out as not of the 70s is that he puts his seatbelt on at all. I remember when I was of primary school age in the late 70s/early 80s and finding it really weird if anyone asked me to wear a seatbelt in their car.

Please to blog every day of such an experiment, also in a gene hunt stylee.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1940000/images/_1944248_jameson_pa.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/lifeonmars/backstage/assets/pc_wallpaper/08_800x600.jpg

We came up with an idea for a new 1970s-style claymation children's show. Battlestar Galactington.

Please to blog every day of such an experiment, also in a gene hunt stylee.

dA yy A zz Ay ^H^H dd

[sound of computer being smashed]

RIGHT. PUB!

This seems to be part of some new BBC subliminal marketing campaign, because "Matt" out of Five Days was on when that serial was running.

None of these professional thespians, however, was as good as Lawro at telling the story.

(yes, pjm, in especially early because i have things to do and nobody here knows how to write a build script that actually builds. have spent two days just trying to get application to compile.)

Gene Hunt

What if this is literal, that the events from the last episode in Series 1 have convinced Sam that his dad (who we now know is a wrong 'un0 might not be his dad after all. What if his dad was actually a policeman, giving Sam his love of the the law, and the good DCI is a clue on the 'hunt' for his 'genes'. The voice of Hyde 2621 could be his real dad, who his mum has brought out of the woodwork since the coma, or possibly the phone calls are a submerged memory of conversations he had with him when he was a kid - that would fit in with "I have to phone you, we have to stick to the rules" - in much the same way S1 had a submerged memory surface about the last time he saw the man he thinks is his dad. There's also the wordplay link between hunt and hide.

I'm liking this more and more. There's also potential for Ashes To Ashes through this solution, following the 'real' Gene Hunt and not the one in Sam's mind.

why is there not an episode on next week? i couldn't be bothered to watch the next one but quite enjoyed this'n.

the Camberwick Green trailer for this series.
i enjoyed this enough to think that it might be nice if someone made an...'adult-orientated' animated series in this style, but with real heart, clever humour etc. because the narration+characters unable to make sound aspect shouldn't be the preserve of kids, perhaps.

It's very good but a bit pleased with itself really. (story involved irish/explosives/"The irish'd never blow up a pub, name me a paddy that doesn't like a drink" ahaha we see what you did there! Also, Chunky kitkat were not available in the seventies and JSims character would know that!

I guess it will be, again.

He does know that but every now and again he forgets himself 'whoops, oh yeah it's 1973 innit, d'oh'.
Didn't like episode 3 as much as the first two.
"Frank Miller"!

Like I say, metaphor past elastic limit.

Frank Miller?

Also in what sort of crazed world is a chunky kitkat more of a treat than a regular one? I don't pay my license fee to watch such foolishness etc etc.

In every sort of crazed world! You loon.

question from previous series: why wouldn't Tyler bet on famous sports results?

i was gonna say the woman who plays Annie seems to be becoming worse at acting each week :( she's nearly as bad as the pub landlord.

Steve, he went on about Red Rum didn't he?

Red Rum? Red Rub more like

but maybe i would get cool points by listening to can and stuff like that.

yes, yes we do.