Life on Mars (US) season 1 - Page 3

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I lasted less than 10 minutes with Knight Rider. The Mentalist wore thin halfway through the second episode so I deleted it mid-play. Life on Mars has stuck with my DVR queue so far and is looking good!

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Of course, but..........






Crawdaddy

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I wasn't comparing the quality. LOM is a better show by any measure.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I just got around to watching the second episode. I don't know...I liked the pilot better. I'm a sucker for current movies/TV shows set in the 70's, and that's probably the only thing keeping me tuned in right now. The Harvey Keitel character is just weird. And when they started punching eachother out in the hospital room it was just really ridiculous. Seems as though the pilot was written by a different writer.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

The second one was halfway between a direct remake and an original episode. It took the premise of one of the better BBC episodes, but was far more radical in veering off on its own direction. I still don't think it's in the class of the original, but at least they're taking advantage of the bigger budget and the more urban evironment. Liked everything that was new better than the stuff that was carried over (with the exception of the hospital room fight, which is just plain great television).

I'm hoping tonight's episode will break into genuine original territory so it can get away from the "UK version's greatest hits" feel.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

This week's episode was fascinating: another adaptation of a BBC episode (the soccer hooligans one) yet almost completely different in context. Soccer hooligans don't translate at all to the US, so they came up with a gay Vietnam vets which wouldn't translate at all to the UK. O'Mara is best in the quiet scenes; I don't buy him when he's yelling, so that was a lot better here. We know the Manchester Gene Hunt didn't have a problem with homosexuals, but it's still interesting see the NYC Gene Hunt come to terms with it himself.
I still wish the other cops would smoke. Still, it's slowly starting to find its own voice.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Loved last night's episode. Gene Hunt's character is starting to grow on me.





Crawdaddy

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Love the show but I was not happy when they (briefly) got into the Viet-Nam vets being spit on.
It's pretty much a well proven urban myth.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Henry: You really don't think a vet anywhere in the country got spit on after coming home? It's a big country, and there was a lot of angry.

Regardless of whether it was widespread, the claim had a lot of popular currency then and now, especially among the institutional types like the NYPD who had their headquarters bombed by the Weather Underground only three years before the year this show is set. Depending on when in 1973 this show is set (I'm guessing before), the Weather Underground has either just recently bombed or is about to bomb the 103rd Police Precinct.

We've had plenty of shows and movies that look back on this time period with rose-colored glasses. I like that this show is also taking time to present the squares' point of view; given the characters and setting, it'd be impossible not to.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I'm sure it must have happened somewhere.
I am also sure it was not common.
"Hey guys, instead of laying around here smoking and screwing and listening to Hendrix, let's go to the airport and spit on some guys who are trained to kill with their bare hands"
Adam, I was a Marine, in Nam in 65/66. Later, I was marching in Washington and doing the previous paragraph. Without the airport/spitting thing of course.
Many of us are very proud of the protests and the fact that only one innocent life was lost in a bombing.
I was in Madison right after that occurance and it was...bad.

This is the Life on Mars thread and I hope you'll forgive me if I don't drift one more inch.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

And you're absolutely entitled to your pride in those protests, and even I suppose the bombings. I appreciate your service and your convictions; my point is that your perspective is not the only perspective. I have not shared my opinions on the anti-war movement because I don't feel that my political beliefs are relevant in the context of the show.

Just because you believe the protests were a great thing (a perspective that Sam Tyler, our protagonist, apparently shares) doesn't mean it would be realistic for most of the 1973 characters we've met to think it's a great thing. The officers of the NYPD were part of the government that allowed the Vietnam war to occur. Therefore, from their perspective, the movement had to feel like a threat. Even though the Weather Underground took steps to keep their targets free of casualities, it was the offices of people like Gene Hunt and Ray Carling that were targeted. Coupled with their demonstrated belief that the means justify the ends in solving crimes, I wouldn't even be surprised if the detectives sympathized with the Ohio National Guard vis-à-vis the Kent State incident.

I'm glad the show is providing a showcase for this viewpoint not because I necessarily agree with it but because it is a viewpoint that has become marginalized by history, so we don't hear it as much. For all of these reasons, I think it was appropriate that Gene and Ray brought up the spitting on returning vets, not because it was necessarily common but because both would be the types to latch onto the idea of it because it fits in with their preexisting assumptions about the anti-war movement.

Once again, I hope I haven't offended you, I just think it's a viewpoint that's important for a show set in 1973. I think the show's producers actually created Sam's hippie neighbor (not in the UK version) to specifically serve as a counterweight for that viewpoint within the show.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Well it certainly did that. It took a drastically different turn to the UK series in that there were three scenes that Sam Tyler was not in. Three things happened that Sam did not witness. The UK series had Sam in every scene so that the viewer would not be able to eliminate the possibility that he was in a coma from the list of possible explanations for his trip to 1973.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Has the character played by Lisa Bonet entered yet? I'd be curious to hear how she did.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

She was in the pilot and has shown up in cameos since. Since her character is a 2008 character, don't expect to see a whole lot of her moving forward.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I dug this past episode.

I was glad to see Tyler finally throw out a more "specific" prediction with the 'Soylent Green' thing (although it didn't seem like anyone knew what the hell he was talking about). But I think if I were him, I'd be throwing out a lot more of that stuff. I know he's given some general nuggets about the future of the country's social state, but I'm thinking of more specific things that happened that year. Then again, it's probably hard to recall what happened specifically in that year (right now I can only think of things that happened around that time). I suppose he could have dropped some money down on that Knicks game.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I noticed this as well! I hope that it wasn't a mistake and that the producers are specifically including those scenes to alter the premise from the British series. If they don't change major things from the source material the American version could start to drag quickly.

I still prefer the British version, but this past episode was excellent.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

After last week's episode showed the series seemingly poised to break free from the UK original, we get tonight's episode which is another point-by-point remake. The only thing substantially different was the removal of the mob boss's sexuality, presumably because it would have conflicted with how Gene Hunt was portrayed during the fresh-for-American-audiences gay Vets storyline from last week's episode. There's also no way the FCC would have allowed the show to have the mob boss being sodomized by a younger man on screen when Hunt and Tyler blast in for the arrest at the end.

So on one hand, I'm really hoping the show can move past the easy comparisons (which aren't favorable to an original unconstrained by a commercial running time and FCC censorship). On the other hand, the episode it was adapted from was one of my favorites and was a real window into the complicated man that is Gene Hunt.

Next week's episode seems to be about a Black Panther hostage situation. Unless it's just a cultural translation of the UK newspaper hostage episode, we might finally see what the American writing staff is capable of.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I haven't seen the UK version and so far I like the show, esp. the pilot.

However, tonights episode wasn't that great and then the scenes for next week with Whoopi,... I hate stunt casting, and maybe it's not stunt casting, but it smells like that to me. I'll follow for a little longer to see where the show is going and I hope it is in a good direction.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Look, I'll say it. This show tonight really kills me toward this. I watched through all the UK eps and enjoyed them; but the US version has now had lifted more then it's fair share. I wonder if they just took these during the writers strike, or what the deal was.

Tonight's episode was, again, as mentioned above, almost a shot-for-shot with the UK version. The only thing that really establishes is that the UK version seemingly (IMHO) presented characters and actors who better fit their roles then the American version, and the British version, unconstrained by FCC & Commercials could present a much beefier, tougher presentation that met the story better.

I think you could do shows within the guidelines on US TV that would "work" and maybe even work better then they ever could in the UK.. but not quite this way.

I'm really struggling with where they go with that.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

One area I wish they'd play with is pacing. If you're going to borrow so liberally from your source material, at least make it work for your medium. Instead of cramming a 60-minute episode into 42 minutes after commercials, they could have slowly developed the mobster plotline over three or four episodes. It would allow them to actually go deeper into things than the UK series was able to, instead of presenting the cliff notes version. Especially since even the mid-level players in NYC organized crime have to be bigger than a drug dealer and night club owner in 1970's Manchester.

The further this version strays from the UK version, the more effective it tends to be.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Anyone notice the Verizon building in the background when Sam was talking to Hunt? Oops!

I'm digging the show, and I never saw the UK version so it seems like that's helping the matter for me. I still wish Sam would "predict" more specific stuff, particularly to the Gretchen Mol character, just to prove he's not crazy.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

At what point in the show did you see the Verizon building?

Of course there were intentional things out of time such as the Nirvana t-shirt and George Bush popping up in the episode.

I think what most people here who are complaining about the lifts from the UK version need to remember is that the large majority of viewers in the US have not seen the UK version. If there is good material there, I don't see any reason not to use it. There were only 16 BBC episodes. Personally, I prefer the execution of the BBC version, but I am still enjoying what is going on here.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

It was toward the end, when Sam & Hunt were standing there talking outside (and drinking). It was the scene where Hunt told Sam the story about the crooked cop. I would say this definitely wasn't intentional...probably just not worth the cost of editing it out. It's not very obvious at all, and you can't even actually read 'Verizon'.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Another great use of period music in last night's episode. I loved the Beach Boys song at the end from Surf's Up. The only time I have heard songs from this album used was in Almost Famous.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

I saw it; it was very distracting. I had to re-watch that scene because I was fixated on the bright red V right behind Tyler's head. You probably couldn't see it on standard definition since it would have been out of a 4:3 frame.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Which Verizon building? The art deco tower at 140 West or the concrete monstrosity on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge?
If it's the former, it would have been easy enough to airbrush out any Verizon paraphernalia, since it was still occupied (IIRC) by the New York RBOC in 1973. If it's the later, I wonder if they couldn't CG scaffolding onto it, since it probably was in the middle of construction in 1973?

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Why would they do either? And why is it even an issue?

I understand they are trying to break from the UK shows, but one of the things that was fairly clear in it was that most of this was a mental creation on his part, or at bare minimum was not "reality".. there were always things that were off.. and we've seen that so far, like the mini-robot in the US version.

So, why is the existence of the Verizon tower an issue at all? In fact, doesn't it just add to the list of anachronisms designed to keep the audience wondering what's real and what isn't?

Or is the US audience so literal that those little things that are off (which creep up a lot in the UK version) throw them?

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Not really an issue for me. Just something I noticed that didn't seem right. I could be wrong, but I don't think it was one of those intentional things like the Nirvana shirt. I think it was just a laziness/time/cost issue. Or perhaps a "who's gonna notice that?" issue.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

Just watched this online and noticed the Verizon logo too. I really like this show and I can't wait til I'm off nights in a couple of weeks and can watch this on a real tv as opposed to my computer monitor.

I'm glad I haven't seen the UK version as I'm sure I'd have the same complaints as the guys who have. I wouldn't want to see a show I liked remade as a cliff notes version either. Be that as it may, I'm enjoying this version a lot and hope the ratings are good enough to move well past the 16 episode mark of the UK series.

Re: Life on Mars (US) season 1

one way this series could distinguish itself from the UK series is
Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)