sholio | Life on Mars, seasons 1 & 2

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tv:life on mars

Life on Mars, seasons 1 & 2

All I have to say about Life on Mars right now is: OMG. :D :D :D

Well, no. I have a lot more to say. Babbling and squee and random character observations ahead!

THANK YOU SHOW for not breaking my heart. ^_^

I'm just ... thrilled with it from start to finish, really, but the ending rocked my world.

I honestly love how the ambiguity of the whole show is still carried through in the ending, satisfying though it was. You still don't know if he's in 1973 and suffering a mental breakdown, or if he's really in a coma in 2006 and deliberately put himself back into a coma to get back to his illusory world. And I love that -- I love how even at the end, it didn't try to tie up this complicated show into a nice neat little package. No safe, simple answers. It was right.

And I cannot textually render my love for Sam's final plunge into madness (or, maybe, sanity). Talk about pushing all my fangirl buttons HARD. I'm still a wound-up ball of squee over the way that it ultimately came down to a choice between the clean, sterile, well-ordered sanity of 2006, or the rowdy, crazy, screwed-up, uncertain world he'd left behind. He could have chosen safety and sanity, while letting his (possibly imaginary) friends die, betrayed, in a mess he'd helped create. And his choice was, "If this is sanity, then let me be insane." Not a shred of hesitation as he jumped off the roof, back into that violent world where he'd started out a total outsider, hating everything about it ... but, eventually, as he'd severed his ties to the future one by one, it had slowly become more real to him than the world he remembered.

I love that he started out as an outsider, lost and alone, and slowly found his place in his new, dirty, violent, screwed-up world, and that when he had the choice between going back or staying, he chose to stay. I want to go back to the beginning now and watch it again, just to see that happen, now that I know where it's going.

After so many shows lately that are open-ended (hi, SGA, NCIS, SPN) or had an ending that tromped on my heart with hobnailed boots (oh hi there, Torchwood), I had almost forgotten how wonderful it feels to invest myself emotionally in a series that contains a complete story with a beginning, middle and end, that ends well and leaves me with a warm glow of affection for the characters, and an infinite slate of possibilities open in front of them.

(Yeah, I know I'm discounting "Ashes to Ashes"; at the moment, just from the tiny bits I've seen while poking around LoM sites, combined with the fact that I remember my flist being reaaaaaalllly lukewarm on it, I think I'm choosing to consider that one a possible "what if" of this particular reality -- one future, but not the only one. I'll get around to watching it eventually, I'm sure, but right now I'm content just to roll in squee for a while.)

And on that note ... I'm going to go wading in the shallow end of the pool for a while. Because John Simm and Philip Glenister are, in that weird not-exactly-Hollywood-handsome way that I totally go for, COMPLETELY SMOKING HOT.

I should probably get this off my chest right off the bat: I am utterly terrible with people's faces, and I had no idea that John Simm had played the Master on Doctor Who until I went and looked him up on IMDB. And this is probably a good demonstration of how deeply my own personal hot-o-meter is affected by personality, because I didn't fall for him as the Master at all. But as Sam, with his sweet, kinda-shy grin -- oh, wow, straight shot to the ovaries. :D And then there's Gene ...

I must admit that, now that I'm poking around fan sites, I feel really weird -- conflicted -- about the Gene Hunt fandom, because the usual fannish hyperbole (GENE HUNT IS GOD, etc) feels uncomfortable when it's applied to a character who embodies so many truly unpleasant and harmful personality traits ... know what I mean? I adore Gene, and yet, I realize that so much about him would be utterly wrong in real life.

Watching LoM, I was thinking about how much easier it is to forgive a character their sins and accept their good qualities when they embody an utterly larger-than-life sort of evil, as opposed to the sort of petty, real-world evil that Gene represents. I go all melty when he does something heroic and I love watching him banter with Sam and yet I'm still very uncomfortable and squirmy at liking him so much when he's so blatantly racist and sexist and violent -- not in a Hollywood sort of way but in a beating-up-immigrants sort of way. This is not good! Hero-worshipping him (as we do with our objects of fannish love) is probably not good either, at least if it's done uncritically. I'm not sure, at this point, if I could write Gene, as much as I want to, because I'm sure that I'd gloss over his worst faults and focus on the personality qualities that are more acceptable to me.

But still. Gene and Sam's buddy-movie act turns me to giggling mush. I love the slow softening of the tension between them, how it's one step forward and two steps back as Sam starts to find his place on Gene's weird little team only to repeatedly come to loggerheads with his boss/rival/partner/friend. I love that the tension never relaxes completely, but it's very obvious that Sam is learning to speak fluent "Gene" and to stand up to him, and that the conflict is becoming more cheerful and friendly as they get to know each other. Like

roving_rez was talking about on my last LoM thread, they trust each other, to a degree that's amazing considering what utter polar opposites they are in pretty much every way. I loved the way that their mutual trust was openly dealt with in S2 -- how Sam's the one that Gene calls when he wakes up covered in blood and faced with a dead body, the one he expects to fix things for him; and, in the same episode, Sam's personal hurt and feelings of betrayal when he learns that Gene lied to him about taking bribes. And it's also telling that Gene was THAT reluctant to admit to Sam that he'd gone back on the take, when a season previously he'd been fairly open about it -- if he'd been completely honest in 2.07, he would've made it a lot easier for Sam to clear his name, but he didn't want Sam to be disappointed in him, and was actually putting himself in greater danger of going to prison because he hated that much to admit that he failed Sam's trust. It's a two-way street, though -- despite Sam's initial (and continuing) horror and condemnation at Gene's brutal, bigoted and unorthodox methods of policing "his" city, he ends up with the same personal loyalty and affection for Gene that the rest of his team have for him.

And the dialogue continues to crack me up.

Sam: Do you keep a journalist chained in your basement for random beatings, guv?
Gene: Don't have a basement.

Gene: Blahdy-blah history blah. It doesn't take a degree in Applied Bollocks to know what's going on.
Sam: Go on then, amaze me with your unsupported guesswork.

Gene: I once hit a bloke for speaking French.

Chris: I wonder what killed him?
Gene: That would be the bloody enormous hole in his chest where the bullet went in!

Gene: She's as nervous as a very small nun at a penguin shoot.

Meanwhile, I'm looking for my usual crack, i.e. gen, friendship and h/c fic. :D There doesn't seem to be much about, but I'm just starting to poke around. Anybody seen anything?

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You finished! The ending was great, wasn’t it? It really feels like a complete package telling the story of Sam’s journey “Home”.

Its sad that it’s gone but man did it suck me in while it was here. Season 2 keep the same atmosphere that I loved in Season 1, maintaining a consistent level of plots, character insights and interaction. The Chamberwick Green opening has me laughing just think about it (its an actual show from the UK).

Series finale –
• Gene’s utter disbelief that Sam could have betrayed him is heartbreaking *mentally hugs Gene*
Gene: Sam, tell me this isn’t true.
• I really loved how they didn’t turn 1973 into some romantic interpretation, and actually ends with Gene and Sam bickering in their usual manner.
Gene: Oh shut up, you noncey assed Fairy Boy.
Sam: Such elegant banter
• The use of the song ‘Life on Mars’ in the finale tugged at my heartstrings like no other. From its use on the roof and then later when Sam changed the radio station. It was very well crafted.
• The WHOLE ending had me on the edge of my seat. I didn’t know what exactly was happening. But I was SO invested in the story and the characters.

I haven’t found any good fics around. Looked at ff.net but its just not the quality I’ve become used to with all you talented SGA writers (FF.net has a LOT of spoilers for Ashes to Ashes / A2A – so watch out). Please tell me if you find any good but I can now direct you to some vids I’ve come across which are awesome. Obfreak’s Question Mark (http://obfreak.livejournal.com/25552.html) and Humansrsuperior’s Breathe Me (http://humansrsuperior.livejournal.com/68353.html).

Gene's "Sam, tell me it isn't true" kinda broke me -- so sad! But what really broke me was when Sam turned away and went back to 2006, leaving them all falling down in a hail of bullets. I'd spent most of the rest of the series hoping he got home, and now that he had, I was just staring in jaw-dropping disbelief that they'd leave it THERE ... everyone dead, with their last thoughts being that Sam had betrayed them. Figments of his imagination or not, it still hurt like a punch to the gut, and I was literally grinning from the moment he went up on the roof and the music swelled, clear through to the end, in relief and joy. I loved that they drove off into the sunset, metaphorically speaking, bickering in their usual fashion, and happy.

And I agree with you about the music -- there were a number of other musical moments in the series that I've loved, but that scene on the rooftop and then the radio station bit was really well done.

And thank you very much for the video links! *goes to download*

Glad you enjoyed S2 as much as S1. I loved the ending though my husband didn't - he didn't think Sam would jump like that. Oh well, each to their own, I thought is was a great way to end it!

The Camberwick Green opening as mentioned above ... so good I've gotta go look it up again on YouTube ...

Oh look, here it is!! I love how even the 'nounce' waves! Nice touch!

Oh, and here's a link to a YouTube vid that has lots of clips from the original kiddie show, just in case you want to compare it!!

Don't know any LoM sites to point you too, sorry.

Back to rejoin the conversation; I've been on a "fannish honeymoon" high the last couple of days, spending all my spare time going through all the fanfic archives! I'm so hopeless. :D

Obviously, I agree with you rather than your husband! I thought it was a fantastic ending. But, as you said, to each their own. And that cracks me up, about the TV show. I didn't realize that it was a parody of a real show; of course, I imagine that there are an awful lot of pop-culture references that are going straight over my head on this show!

Hey, you finished! And it was awesome! This is one of those series that I mainlined like crack -- who needs sleep, really? When there's a show written this well?

Possibly because I'd just read it again, but this show kept reminding me of Terry Pratchett's Night Watch (http://books.google.com/books?id=ubRi0dxb8EIC&dq=pratchett+night+watch&psp=1&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0).
The main character's an honest cop trying to deal with a corrupt and violent past while keeping true to himself -- and his name's even Sam! *hee* I'm easily amused.

But the show was amazing, really. I was very impressed with how well they built the 70s era world -- in all its grit and vigor and unapologetic mess. And the dialouge's just astonishing, how good it is. Now I'm wondering why American cop shows are never this cool . . .

Hee! I watched the whole thing in about 3 or 4 days -- and for me, a couple of episodes is a lot of TV for one sitting! It's just wonderfully written, and now that I'm going back and starting to re-watch, I'm noticing how well-crafted it is -- little things, things I'd missed the first time around, like the voices on the phone in 2.07 being flashes forward to the events of 2.08.

And they really did do so well with 1973; I loved that they didn't whitewash its ugliness and didn't make it a parody, either.

I love this show so much for being consistently wonderful right up to the very end. It only broke my heart in the good ways, and I can't remember the last time watching a show has left me in such awe.

I love it so much! It's so incredibly rare for a show to be so consistently good, in pretty much every way -- well written, well acted, wonderfully put together, great music, fantastic ending. In my head, it compares more to books than to most TV I've seen.

It's right up there as one of my all-time favourites, from start to finish. I think I've gotten so used to a show starting off great and then declining, or a show starting off "eh" and then getting better, I wasn't ready for a show to start off great and never move from that spot.

There should be a community just for LOM dialogue

Sam: This place is like Guantanamo Bay.
Gene: Give over, it's nothing like Spain.

The dialogue is just fantastic!

Vic: I've got a young lad named Sam.
Gene: I've got a pain in the arse called Sam!

Woolfe: He would be my nemesis, if he could spell it.

Gene: So I'm right?
Sam: We both are.
Gene: Right.
Sam: Right.
Gene: Just as long as I'm more right than you.

Hi! I usually lurk, but I had to write to defend Gene's actions in 2x07. He hadn't gone "back on the take"; as he explained to Sam, he had stopped that months ago (due to Sam's influence). The envelope with money was a combination of an attempted bribe (which failed when Gene testified truthfully) and blackmail.

I'm so glad you discovered this fandom. Life on Mars, Phil Glenister, and John Simm are awesome! I'd recommend that you either don't watch Ashes to Ashes or watch it as an AU or meta comment on LoM, however. It just isn't up to the same standard as LoM (at least so far—perhaps S2 of A2A will be better).

lifein1973 is a good LoM comm for fiction. A good way to start is to check out the recent posts from the recommendations fortnight. (See the tag "Fic compilations" in the sidebar to the right.)

ETA: I almost forgot about the fic archive! The Collators' Den (http://kerfuffle.org/collatorsden/eFiction331/) opened a month or so ago and has quite a collection of LoM and A2A fics already.

Thank you so much for the links! I actually haven't been back to comment in this thread because I've spent the last couple of days wallowing self-indulgently in fanfic -- well, that and working, of course. :D

Anyway, thank you for the clarification of Gene's actions. I went back and re-watched the scene (such a hardship XD ) and I see that you're absolutely right. I guess this is the problem with having mainlined the whole series in just a few days; I appear to have missed plot points along the way! In a way though, that's even cooler, because Sam's influence on Gene in 1.04 apparently stuck -- he hasn't backslid.

Wow, you went through those episodes fast. LoM is one of my all time favorite tv shows. I loved those first episodes, Sam as the outsider. I had a hard time adjusting to Gene but loved that we got to see him through Sam's eyes and learn to accept him and in some ways love him along with Sam.

I also liked how the POV on this show was 100% Sam's. We never saw anything or heard anything that wasn't seen and heard and experienced by Sam. And then I like how in one episode, they had Sam viewing events through a tv to allow us to view events that Sam was outside of. The experimentation and the fascinating characters and the changes in Sam and that AWESOME scene when he leapt from the building. Did I mention how much I adored how they played with 1970s cop show tv conventions?

I love this show.

Did you know they are making a US based version of this show? Somehow that seems wrong.

I went through the show at a really terrifying rate! I don't normally watch much TV (an episode or two a day is a lot of TV for me) but I mainlined this one in about 4 days, and I've been buried in fanfic for the last couple of days. :D

I noticed the POV thing, too! It was actually right before the TV episode that I caught onto it -- I was just wondering if we ever saw *anything* that wasn't from Sam's viewpoint, and then they had an episode that amply demonstrated that Sam is our viewpoint character for everything that happens. Actually, that really tight POV is one of a number of things in the series that gives it more of a "book" feeling than a TV show feeling to me.

Did I mention how much I adored how they played with 1970s cop show tv conventions?

Hee! I know! And movies. The final scenes on the train struck me as a direct homage to the famous Butch Cassady "Butch and Sundance vs. the Bolivian army" scene.

Did you know they are making a US based version of this show? Somehow that seems wrong.

I know, and it's so wrong! I ... I guess they can do as they like, but I doubt if I'll be watching it. John Simm and Philip Glenister are Sam and Gene; I just can't imagine anyone else in the roles. I really do hope that they use the basic idea but construct the characters differently -- I think that would be easier to deal with than having different actors running around as Sam and Gene and Annie, etc.

LoM really was such a great show...so very different from anything else. I loved that it kept me continually wondering exactly what was going on with Sam, and never definitively answered the question. And I agree, the interactions between Gene and Sam were so fabulous. I have to admit that I loved Chris, too, because despite the fact that he really wasn't the brightest crayon in the precinct, he was also the only one (apart from Annie) who regularly understood Sam's policing procedures.

I was continually impressed with how realistic they made everything. Every episode had me going "wow, I didn't even think about that - they didn't have (DNA profiling, computers, cell phones, etc) in the 70's. I was surprised by the unabashed and unashamedly realistic portrait of ignorance and bigotry - I guarantee any American version of the show will be heavily muzzled, and therefore will have no bite to it.

I love Gene's leather gloves and white shoes. I don't know why, I just do. And I love that his heart is in the right place even though he's a bigoted, racist, sexist, bad-tempered person.

Actually, I think I love all the characters because they're so real, because they can't be fit into neat little stereotypes. They're not all good or all bad, they're just doing their best - except when they aren't.

I don't want to read LoM fic, though. I think I don't want anyone else's perception to influence my own.

So what's this "Ashes to Ashes" thing? I watched LoM on BBCAmerica, and I haven't heard of this at all.

Okay, never mind, I just found out what "Ashes to Ashes" is. Hopefully BBCAmerica will broadcast it at some future date (took them damn long enough to bother showing the second season of LoM).

Looking above, what the hell is wrong with my italics? I could swear I closed the coding. Oh well.

I love how gritty and real and believable they made 1973. The show could so easily have gone for camp (in fact, from the articles I'm looking up, the original idea was more of a parody of the 1970s, as opposed to the much more moody and dark feeling that they eventually went with.

It's really one of the most successful examples I've ever seen of culture-clash in time travel, because the usual Hollywood thing to do would be to focus on silly pop-culture differences between 2006 and 1973 (a la Back to the Future -- a long string of jokes based around the main character conveniently forgetting what hasn't been invented yet). But Sam's smart; he slips up occasionally, but in general, he knows the little trivia-type things -- it's the systemic things that get him, the endemic bigotry and the casual aspects of life that most people take for granted. It actually sometimes surprises me to remember how quickly we've come in such a short time; I was talking to a co-worker recently about her pregnancy in the mid 1970s, and how maternity leave as an institution didn't exist at that time. She worked 'till she was laid off at six months, as per company policy. It had honestly never occurred to me that it was that recent; since I've been in the workforce, maternity leave is pretty much a given (at least at bigger companies and salaried jobs) but it's something that's occurred in my lifetime.

Actually, I think I love all the characters because they're so real, because they can't be fit into neat little stereotypes. They're not all good or all bad, they're just doing their best - except when they aren't.

Oh yes, I agree so much! I love that the show addresses things like corruption and bigotry by using the main characters as examples, rather than bringing in third-party characters to have their wicked ways "fixed". I love that Sam is a lot more than just a white hat who rides in and enlightens everybody -- he's messed up and conflicted, as much as anyone around him, and the rigid moral code that he tries to follow is almost as likely to get people hurt or killed as it is to help.

Edited to add, regarding Gene's gloves: I happen to have a bit of a fetish for leather gloves of that sort, so it's not just you. :D And, yeah, he's such a complete ass in pretty much every way, and yet, he's also a fundamentally decent person who is capable of doing selfless, heroic things. I think that the contrast is developed very well.

*laughs and laughs and laughs*

I just read this and your earlier post. This is somehow my fault, is it?

Well, pretty much, yes. You gave it to me!

I started reading your lj because of SGA fanfic (you are a fantastic writer, BTW), and stayed because you love the same things I do. Dresden, squee! Doctor Who, squee! John and Rodney friendship, squee! So when you mentioned the love for this show I had to watch it. And the fact that it had John Simm in it didn't hurt.

Damn you! I had two days off from work during which I had huge plans to paint shelves but nooooooo. Instead I had to (HAD to, mind you) spend the entire two days mainlining the show, one season a day. Seriously, friendshipper, what have you done to me?

*heehee* You (whoever you are) watched it even faster than I did! It took me several days to get through it, and I thought *I* was going fast. :D (And thank you for the kind words on my fic, too!)

Eep! All your talking about the show piqued my interest, and I obediently went to get my hands on the DVDs as well... It was well worth it ;) I recognised Sam as the Master on Doctor Who pretty quickly into the show, and initially I had difficulty separating him from what I've seen of the Master (just short clips, as I'm not done with the second season yet). What I slowly realised (and came to appreciate) was that John Simm was... incredibly hot, for lack of a more sensible word. *clears throat* In my defense, I only came to this realisation after I became utterly enraptured with the plot, and with the way the clues were laid out in a bigger puzzle than the ones Sam faced at work every day. It was quite thrilling. And creepy at parts; I don't watch horror movies as a rule, and the test card girl totally freaked me out.

I'm not sure what to make of the ending though - especially since I went to wiki immediately and saw the description of Ashes to Ashes. I'm rather disappointed, and I didn't have the sense to take it as an AU and thereby protect my image of Life on Mars. I don't know if you've already wiki'd this so I shan't say more about it, but suffice to say I thoroughly enjoyed the ride :) Thanks for the rec!

Eeee! I'm glad you liked it! ^_^ I've totally shoved Ashes to Ashes into the AU box in my head ... I haven't even watched it yet. I'm much happier that way! It's such a fantastic show and I hate to spoil it with a sequel that I kinda want to pretend doesn't exist.

I actually didn't know that John Simm was the Master until after I had finished LoM and was looking him up on imdb.com -- I'm really terrible with faces!

Okay, so I was reading a LoM fic and saw you'd commented there and then said WAIT OMG SHE'S IN THIS FANDOM TOO MUST LOOK UP TAGS and then I saw your posts about this and EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. I have nothing more to add, other than that I'm still totally in 100% fandom honeymoon mode and wanted to bask in the squee a while longer, and everything you said here, from the screen to my heart. Just, this show -- the finale -- ♥♥♥♥♥.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE back at you! :D Isn't it an awesome show? It's definitely one of my all-time favorites, and as sad as I am that there are only 16 episodes EVER, I also love how it has a beginning, middle and end, and a very distinct and satisfying character arc for the main character (and well, in a way, Gene too).

I have some stories tagged on delicious (http://delicious.com/friendshipper/lifeonmars); my delicious tagging is random and erratic, and I have next to *no* SGA fic on there, but when I get into a new fandom I've been trying to remember to bookmark things I liked, so that I can find them later!

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Life on Mars, seasons 1 & 2

Yay!

Re: Yay!

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You pusher you!

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