Life on Mars

[vilakins]

Suddenly we got a cold blast from the Antarctic and the temperature dropped about 10 degrees and I shivered all day in my summer clothes till I could get home and change into winter ones. It was Greg's birthday so we braved the wind and rain and went out for Italian and warming red wine, then came home and watched the last ep of Life on Mars.

OK, that defied all logic and now my temporal lobe hurts. :-P The whole thing didn't make sense: Sam appeared to be a real person with a different history in the past, but also a real one in the future given that his future was the ours. Who the hell is Morgan though? He too is in both places, and a right bastard in the past. I was actually yelling at Sam to shoot him because I thought that was the key to getting out and I knew he was wrong about Gene and his team.

I almost jumped out of my skin when test card girl appeared outside the door. I liked her ending the ep though; nice touch.

I'd assume that 1973 or 2006 was Sam's dream, but:
1) 1973 was too coherent and consistent to be a dream
2) 2006 was real, not a 1970s vision of the future
3) Gene Hunt can't be a tumour, even a benign one, because he's turning up in the sequel. :-D

It really doesn't make sense but I'll have to accept time travel despite Sam's method of getting back. For me the ending was satisfying if I ignore the very disturbing way Sam got back (a huge cop-out so to speak; suicide is not an escape) and a great relief after what appeared to be a bleak future for Sam and a very short one for the others. I look forward to the sequel; pity he won't be in it. For those who don't know about this, it's called Ashes to Ashes and will have a female DCI going back to 1981 where Gene Hunt, Ray, and Chris are working in London. Sounds good, but do they have to refer to Alex Drake as "Gene's sexy side-kick"? [rolls eyes] I don't think we've gone as far in equality as Sam thought.

Comments

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

I agree with the brain ache. I was glad he went back as he no longer seemed to fit in 2006, but maybe it was just his version of heaven? I don't know, but I enjoyed it a lot and will give the spin off a go if it means I can watch Gene Hunt ;0)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I might go along with the heaven idea if not for all the violence and killings and misogyny, but the biggest obstacle to any theory other than time travel or soul transfer is the sequel and its premise - that someone else from the future ends up back there with Gene and his team - and has read Sam's notes about his experience. Both times/places therefore have to be real.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Sam doesn't believe that he is committing suicide. Rightly or wrongly, he's just concluded that the 21st century he woke up in is an hallucination. He takes Nelson's dictum about feeling/not-feeling:life/death to refer to physical feeling, rather than (or as well as) emotions; when he cuts his hand and feels nothing, it's a sharp contrast with the earlier scene in which he winced as Annie hit him and she remarked that it hurt because it was real.

I'm not sure whether he decides that 1973 is real, or just a better class of hallucination. But if there's the faintest chance that it is real, he's bound to feel his priority is saving his colleagues there. He followed Morgan's instructions while he believed Gene and co were imaginary, but he began to waver as soon as Morgan insisted on their reality, because he began to fear the danger they were in was real.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I'd be happy to believe that the 2006 Sam woke up in wasn't real because he doesn't feel, but they're doing a spin-off which uses the recordings he made there about his experiences, so it must be. I refuse to believe that 1973 was all a dream of a dying man though; it was far too real and internally consistent.

I hope they don't jump the shark with this spin-off.