If you've been reading The Remote Island for a while, you know we're fans of the original British version of Life on Mars -- and we've been tracking the American series through all kinds of changes, from new producers to a new cast to a move in setting from L.A. to New York City. So how did the show turn out after all that? Pretty well -- though with all the introductory material in the pilot episode, we don't get to see this fantastic group of actors really show their stuff quite yet. And the story is virtually identical to the BBC's version -- which means if you've seen it, you already know what to expect. If not, you're lucky, because it's a unique and original concept.
But let's start from the beginning:
An attractive pair of cops (Jason O'Mara as lead Sam Tyler, and long-time-no-see Cosby kid Lisa Bonet as his girlfriend Maya) are driving through NYC, having a relationship argument. They're pretty calm, considering that they're in a line of police cars speeding to a crime scene with sirens blaring. They're after a suspected killer, who makes a run for it. Sam chases him down and catches him. In the interrogation room, it turns out that there's a lot of evidence against him, but he's got what looks to be an airtight alibi: A security tape shows him gambling at a casino somewhere else when the crime took place.
But guess what? The guy has a twin brother, and that's who's really on the tape. Unfortunately, Maya has decided to keep track of the killer by following him on foot -- and when the cops go to rearrest him, both he and Maya are gone, with nothing but some bloody clothes left behind in a park.
Sam -- whose cop car, for some reason, is a Jeep Grand Cherokee -- drives off to the killer's apartment, with David Bowie's "Life on Mars" playing on his iPod. (Because that's the name of the show; presumably Time Cop was already taken.) But the moment he gets out of the car, another car zooms by and hits him so hard it's like a cartoon. He falls into the street, unconscious.
And then he stands up, seemingly unhurt. Except he's suddenly in a vacant lot, wearing a leather jacket and an open, wide-collared shirt. And where the apartment building was just a minute ago, now there's just a sign announcing its impending construction, in 1973. (Sure, they may have borrowed that bit from Back to the Future, but we get the point.) And "Life on Mars" is still playing, except now it's coming from an 8-track in a rad '70s muscle car.
A uniformed cop confronts Sam, who's still disoriented. He reaches into the car's glove compartment for the registration, and it's in the name of Sam Tyler. "I need my cell," Sam says. "You need to sell what?" the cop says. Ha! Then Sam looks up, and sees... the twin towers of the World Trade Center. (Okay, that's how he figures out that he's gone back in time. But using such a potent symbol for a plain ol' TV cop show seems, frankly, kind of wasteful and just a little bit creepy.) In case we still don't get it, we now see an extremely brief title sequence in which a big "2008" turns into a "1973."
Sam starts wandering around the city streets, which seem straight out of Serpico, or maybe Shaft. There are burned-out hippie types everywhere, and a groovy cat bopping along to a transistor radio. Sam finally notices the semi-leisure suit he's wearing, and pulls an old-time detective's ID from the pocket with his name and photo on it. Not only has he gone back 35 years, but apparently he belongs here.
He enters what seems to be his own police station house, which is now crowded with strangers and full of smoke. "You look like you've seen a ghost," says a guy with long sideburns. Another cop, sporting long hair and a handlebar mustache, looks exactly like Christopher from The Sopranos. Hi, Michael Imperioli! They've been expecting Sam, who's supposed to be transferring to the detective squad from somewhere upstate.
Seeing nothing where it's supposed to be, Sam yells out in frustration and anger. The commotion wakes the squad commander, Lt. Gene Hunt, who comes out of his office, not looking happy. Hi, Harvey Keitel! Sam asks Hunt what year it is; the lieutenant responds by punching him hard in the gut. Yep, that's the Gene Hunt we know and love from the British version, or close enough.
Sam sits at a desk, and now we see an old Alka-Seltzer commercial on TV and a headline about Vietnam on the front page of the paper. Still not getting it, he tries to call Maya. That fails, and he starts hearing voices in his head that sound like doctors operating on a patient. He screams, which makes the voices go away but leads the other cops to further determine that he's crazy. And maybe he is.
They send him to a female officer with a blonde blow-dryer hairdo. Her name is Annie, but she's referred to as "No-Nuts" -- because she's a woman, get it? (Really, is that what sexism sounded like 10 years after Mad Men?) Anyway, hi, Gretchen Mol! Annie determines that Sam's basically healthy, even though he claims he's from the year 2008. And she's not a doctor, but she does have a psychology degree -- not that anyone cares, because she also has boobies, which disqualifies her from any important police work.
Hunt and the crew come in and say they've found the body of a missing girl. Her blouse was left in East River Park -- which just happens to be where Maya disappeared. And the murder sounds exactly like the m.o. of the serial killer who took her. "Is this why I'm here?" Sam wonders. In the morgue, he notices a fiber under the girl's fingernail that also matches the 2008 case. But trying to explain to the others that he's found a connection between this crime and one that won't happen for decades makes him seem crazier still.
Annie takes him to the apartment the police department has found for him, and it's not bad for New York City. (Today it would cost $2,500 a month, and it probably wouldn't have been remodeled since 1973 anyway.) He takes one more stab at telling her what's happened to him. "I had an accident and I woke up 35 years in the past. Now, that either makes me a time-traveler, a lunatic, or I'm lying in a hospital bed in 2008 and none of this is real." Yep, that about covers it -- although the producers have implied in interviews that they've come up with some even more unlikely explanations for his predicament.
When Annie leaves, a doctor on TV starts talking about a patient named Sam, who sounds just like our hero, but is in a coma. He exhibits "low responsiveness," but isn't in a persistent vegetative state, and may be "operating in an alternate reality." Sam tries to communicate with the doctor, but can't.
He ends up at a cop bar, where he learns there's no such thing as a "Diet Coke," so he orders a double scotch. Now he's starting to fit in. Gene Hunt enters, and gives a speech about his tough policing philosophy. As monologues go, it's not exactly Tarantino material, but it'll do. Sam convinces Hunt that he has a handle on the case, so he's given a chance to run it. But his newfangled psych talk about getting into the mind of the killer only ends up making the other cops frustrated again, so they leave to comb the streets for the perp.
Meanwhile, the dead girl's friend has gone missing, too. And Sam decides to bring the grandmother of the 2008 suspect in for questioning. Earlier in 1973, she had made a complaint about a noisy neighbor, but the sound had stopped immediately afterward. Sam, who's figured out that the fibers under the victims' fingernails were soundproofing materials, realizes this means he might be the perp. And, sure enough, the missing girl is at the neighbor's apartment. The new suspect runs away, and Sam rushes after him in a chase scene that echoes the earlier one from the future. The guy pushes some shelving onto Sam, knocking him over, and grabs his gun. Sam thinks being shot might actually get him sent back to his own time, and his babbling about it confuses the suspect long enough for Hunt to get there and punch the guy out.
They load him into a squad car, and two little boys standing outside the apartment wave at him as he leaves -- it's the twins from the future! We realize that one of them will grow up to be a murderer, in imitation of his childhood neighbor.
Later, Sam goes back to the building, and seems to be considering shooting the kid as a preventive measure. But before he can, he hears Maya talking to him on the car radio. She says she's safe, everything's okay, and that he should come home. Unfortunately, he doesn't know how.
Maya's voice is interrupted by a report of a robbery, and Sam drives off to work it -- because until he can figure out what's going on, he's a cop in 1973.
Previously:
All about Life on Mars