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)

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.