Life on Mars (US) season 1

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I noticed that to with the music and he phone call. Other than that, love this show Can't wait till the next ep.

Update just saw this post which if true may descibe the discontinutiy. Dam ABC-


Unless Wiki is wrong.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Whoever wrote that sentence at Wiki should take English Composition again.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I wouldn't be surprised if it is true. They've been promoting it quite a bit these past few weeks, and a good way to get people watching would be to go with a straightforward action-heavy episode for the first one back. That being said, I'd argue that putting it on after Lost sort of means that it doesn't have to be all that straightforward for people to like it.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

They addressed this in the Life on Mars podcast that was released a day or so before the show aired. They decided to go with a done in one relatively straightforward episode so people who were picking it up for the first time after watching Lost would be able to get into it right away.

I agree that it seemed there was a lot less music this time around.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Unfortunately, according to 'Mars' slips; 'Idol' improves; Couric flops--The Live Feed ratings were not good. I hope ABC at least lets the show show the rest of the this season worth of episodes.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Thats too bad, its a decent show, with a good cast, maybe too hard to get into.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

2 episodes have aired and not one person has commented on them. Did everyone give up on the show? I still like it and I'll miss it when it get canceled, but I'm not surprised it will be since its a show I like and the entire universe is out to ruin my enjoyment of television. At least there's the BBC version to offer an ending if this version doesn't get one.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I'm still watching, although I am at a loss to understand why ABC is showing the episodes out of sequence since coming back from the winter break. Three episodes have aired ( 11, 8, 12 ).

- Walter.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I don't know what the story is with episodes 9 and 10, but they wanted to show what was basically a straightforward episode when coming back from the break and so used episode 11. They then went back to resolve the "cliffhanger" from before the break, though according to the podcast they changed some things to make it appear that it wasn't such a big break in continuity. Now they continued from 11, following some of the threads in there.

With last nights episode, we got to see the mirror again with the various possibilities and so were able to rule out the extraterrestrials.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I was at a Life on Mars panel at NY Comic Con last week, where Wednesday's episode was shown a few days in advance and some of the cast & producers did a Q&A at the end. Might be considered light spoilers:


Warning Spoiler! Click to show

Also, the producers mentioned that all the music you hear on the show as it airs on ABC has been cleared for DVD!

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Regarding the spoilers
Warning Spoiler! Click to show Great news about the music. I'm glad they were able to get that taken care of in advance.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I know why this was done. (Scroll down to post #7.)

Life On Mars - Message Boards - ABC.com

This information was passed on to me and comes from one of the producers.


I'm relieved to hear that I'll be able to get this as well, to complement "October Road".

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Great episode tonight. I never would have guessed they would have thrown someone from 2009 in there temporarily.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Just out of curiosity, are they still pretty much following directly from the British version?

And I agree, it was a very good episode. For a few seconds I was a little concerned that the man from 2009 thing would be stretched out along the last few episodes until Sam finds a way to get home, in case the show doesn't get a second season, but I'm glad it was a quick once-off thing.

Though, I do hope this series gets some closure after its done, otherwise I'll have to track down the British version (which I might still do anyway).

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

This episode was completely new territory as far as I can remember. The whole business with Hunt's daughter is a new plotline as well.

The producers have said that they are having a different reason for Sam to be in 1973 than the British version. The reason is that they wanted to have things develop over several seasons and didn't want the ending ruined by people just looking up the British show summary on wikipedia. So, while there are a lot similarities they are making their own series. By the way, the sequel to the British Life on Mars - Ashes to Ashes - starts on BBC America next month. That has someone interacting with Gene Hunt and crew in the 80s.

As far as closure, I doubt that they'll be given the chance to wrap it up this season if ABC decides not to renew it. Still, there is a chance that if that is the case, we'll find out online what they had planned.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I have been watching this series for the most part and I like it more now then before. What is odd for me is to see it now after Lost has started to explain more and more the time travel elements.

So it plays with your head a little, am I still watching Lost!

I never saw the British version. So this is all new to me. And I am enjoying the journey. I liked the bits they threw in like the girl and the TV playing with him, giving him bits of 2009 and The Wizard of Oz.

I like Gretchen Moll's character too. I can remember 1973, but I was kid, so I didn't see that kind of sexism she's dealing with.

I must have missed one episode, Sam seems to get telephone calls giving him clues, I assume that's not been explained yet?

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

We did in the 2nd one back this year (which resolved the previous cliffhanger of sorts) that the person who was interviewing them made one of the phone calls.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Note that Lost is supposed to run over until about 10:06, so there is a chance that Life on Mars might overrun 11 PM.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

ABC Cancels Life On Mars

Cancelled. Noooooooooooooooooooo................ A decent show I looked forward to every week soon to be gone

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Let's face it though, we all knew it was coming. At least the networks have been getting better lately at letting shows finish the season before ditching them. I remember a few pretty recent shows where the networks handled things pretty poorly (Reunion was cancelled after what, 5 episodes? And the way ABC handled Day Break was horrible, promising that they'd all all 13 episodes straight through, then promising the last few episodes would be online, and then 6 months later finally getting them posted).

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I enjoyed the show, but I'm not terribly upset to see it go. I thought it's biggest flaw was that it didn't utilize the whole "cop caught 35 years in the past" angle enough. For the most part, all we got was one or two future reference comments from Sam each week. In the end, it was pretty much just another cop show (but a pretty good one). And I'm not sure if it's a flaw of the show, but I'm not even all that interested in why he's stuck in the past.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Too Bad, joins Journeyman as a show with possibilities getting axed. I think it could've been good enough to be a straight cop show without the gimmick. I have to wonder if the all star casting doomed the show. I would imagine that Imperioli and Keitel were more expensive than Colm Meaney and Lenny Clarke would've been. Hom many more eps are in the can and how many more are we likely to see?

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

From the article:


Implying, at least to me, that they'll actually air the remaining 5 episodes.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I doubt that anyone on this forum seriously believed that ABC would renew it. I hope that they are going to put together a nice DVD set which will give even more information than what can be resolved in the series/seaosn finale. At least we've heard that the music we've heard will be on the DVD set.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I thought from the beginning, and still think that the casting doomed the show. Colm Meaney was an infinitely better choice for the role. I love Keitel, but it's hard for him to handle this role and not come off fake.

This show needed actors who simply weren't so high-profile. The bigger problem is that the show really struggled to find the gritty voice of the British version - some british shows just don't translate, because people who want to see them feel as though we can watch the superior version on BBCA.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I thought it was pretty freakin' gritty even for an American show.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I also figured the show wouldn't last more than one season. I am getting tired of the so-called "reality" shows that are dominating the networks. Thankfully we have some choices for scripted programs on cable networks.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I'm not surprised its canceled and I'm not angry but I am disappointed.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I could have sworn that in last week's episode there was some event or newspaper that identified it as taking place in October 1973. In this week's episode, though takes place on the Ali-Norton fight of September 10, 1973.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

It was a nice nod in the episode to the actor Philip Glenister who played Gene Hunt on the BBC series.

Anybody recall any specific dates in the previous episodes. As mentioned above I think this last one was the September 10, 1973 fight (unless Sam misremembered and it is the March fight where Ali lost).