Some more news on US Life on Mars has emerged from TCA (the Television Critics’ Association), as reported at After Ellen. Executive producer Josh Appelbaum was there—the last time I recall seeing Josh’s credit regularly was the first season of Martial Law, but I know I have seen his name on the odd programme since.
   Appelbaum gave a few more insights into the new series, saying that Annie Cartwright (the third!) has not been cast yet, but that she would be stronger than Liz White’s character. She would be more outspoken and connected to the women’s lib movement, he said.
   The storyline seems to have totally changed, too, probably giving the new Gene and Ray a chance to shine with some homophobic comments and how times have changed—which was one of the points of the original that the rejected Kelley pilot lacked:

Appelbaum also said “the first batch” of the series starts off with a gay story line. But wait! It’s about men and “deals with a returning Vietnam vet, with finding a victim that’s gay ... we deal with all of that stuff, specifically how it’s viewed at the time.”

   Interestingly, he talks about ‘1973’, so the year will not be changed in the American version after all.
   He also promised (at another source) that the show will have a different mythology to the original and that viewers will see ‘a dozen’ possibilities of what has happened to the US Sam Tyler by the end of episode two.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

More casting announcements are emerging from Hollywood about the American re-remake of Life on Mars.
   Jonathan Murphy (formerly Ronnie of October Road) has been cast as Det Chris Skelton, which means David E. Kelley’s successors on the programme have brought back both Chris and Ray—two characters missing from the first attempt at remaking the British series.
   The Hollywood Reporter’s description of Chris is familiar: ‘a jittery young detective who is new to the department.’
   It may mean that the redo will try to forge relationships between Sam Tyler and the rest of the department akin to the original’s.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

British TV fans cited how ABC ruined Cracker when it remade it with the late Robert Pastorelli taking Robbie Coltrane’s role of Fitz, especially when news of a US remake of Life on Mars surfaced. (No twitters, meanwhile, on news that the Spanish are remaking the show; also the critics seem to be silent on the botched British remakes of Married with Children, Who’s the Boss? and Outrageous Fortune).
   Get ready for more mud-slinging heading westward across the Atlantic. The Americans are having another crack at Cracker, executive-produced by Robert Duvall (who isn’t called Robert in this?), as a TNT original production. No whispers yet in the article about whom will play Fitz. I actually hope it could be Coltrane himself, who has faked an American accent often enough.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Samantha1

If ABC hadn’t advertised on Lucire last year with its series Samantha Who? I would have wondered what folks were talking about.
   For instance, I probably would have thought it was the first proper Chinese–American sitcom, Samantha Hoo. Yes, folks, east Asians on prime-timenetwork television. Yellow-skinned Americans with a rice cooker. This hasn’t been seen since Margaret Cho was in All American Girl. We haven’t had “our Cosby” emerge in the US yet.
   Samantha Hoo could have been a good series about a Chinese–American woman who wakes up after an accident and discovers she has no memory of her heritage, and thinks she’s white.
   Each episode she discovers something new about her ethnicity that she didn’t know before. The final episode has her speaking Cantonese rather than American English. Laughs all round.
   When it would have been explained to me that it was Who, and not Hoo, I would have then believed this was one of those Doctor Who spin-offs like Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Mysteries.
   Samantha Who is the story of a woman who is the love child between the Doctor and one of his female companions, and seeks to find her estranged father. It is filmed in the United States, so she has an American accent. Along the way, travelling in a white Volkswagen convertible, she pieces together parts of the timelord side of her past, meeting various characters from the main Doctor Who series to mark it as a spin-off: Sarah Jane Smith and K-9, Capt Leithbridge Stewart of UNIT, and someone looking suspiciously like Eric Roberts.
   She is raised to seek out the Doctor and the first-season finalé leads to her admission of a growing romance between her and Capt Jack, who also has an American accent (see, now the casting makes sense). The final of the series, meanwhile, sees her finally find her father, but not before Greg ‘B. J. McKay’ Evigan, as the Master, tries to claim that he is her biological father. Paul Reiser guests as the Doctor.
   As it turns out, Samantha Who? is actually an American TV series starring Christina Applegate, whose memory loss has caused her to blank out that she once played Kelly Bundy.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

E’s Kristin dos Santos and Jennifer Godwin report that executives have put the roles of Gene Hunt and Annie Cartwright back on the open market for the American version of Life on Mars. In my opinion, these are the two they should have looked at keeping: Colm Meaney needed better lines, and Rachelle Lefèvre’s was the only role that took a welcome direction that was fresh and different from the original.
   This early move does not bode well for the production, in my opinion—and Jason O’Mara as Sam Tyler needs a rethink. (ABC has a deal with Mr O’Mara, so he will be involved, I believe—but he needs to convey a lot more vulnerability than he did in the leaked, rejected pilot.)

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

After seeing the (now-scrapped) pilot, I am of the mind that

Taye Diggs in Day Break

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

I don’t expect Gene Hunt in the US to be identical to Philip Glenister’s portrayal. After all, Americans will not get how the original evoked DI Jack Regan from The Sweeney. When the pilot is rewritten and remade, may I suggest these two characters are borne in mind for American audiences?

Gene Hackman Genie

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

I’ve rewatched the Life on Mars American pilot (the one which will not air) and it’s improved slightly on a second viewing, but not much. Some general comments:

Colm Meaney as Capt Gene Hunt

• Colm Meaney as Capt Gene Hunt: Meaney is a terrific actor—he was brilliant in Layer Cake—and I thought he would bring that sort of demeanour to his Gene Genie. But apart from the orientation scene when he tells Sam it’s 1972, and threatening a witness, he’s plain nice. Even though he knows Sam claims he’s from 2007, he asks him nicely to interview a witness. He also doesn’t smoke, there’s no hint of him being the high sheriff of his domain, nor is there any hint of racism or homophobia. I had hoped he would evoke John Wayne in McQ or Gene Hackman’s Popeye Doyle but the man is given no room to be a “licensed hood” in the script. He’s certainly not ‘an overweight, over-the-hill, nicotime-stained borderline alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding’ as was described in the original series;
• Jason O’Mara as Det Sam Tyler: rigid, and never feeling that much confusion over being back in 1972. With John Simm, we felt a sense of disorientation, but we don’t with O’Mara’s performance. O’Mara is a great leading man but shows none of the vulnerability here that I think the Sam Tyler role needs. I don’t know much of his work, but I believe he has that Celtic edge that’s needed to pull off the role well—but he needs better direction;
• 

  Rachelle Lefevre as Det Annie Cartwright
  Rachelle Lefèvre as Det Annie Cartwright: playing the straight woman to Sam Tyler, it’s not hard to see why she was cast first by David E. Kelley. Her performance is about the only one I would rate highly, and it’s on a par with Liz White’s PW Annie Cartwright without being an attempt at copying her. Although her publicity shots are rather glamorous, the Rachelle Lefèvre in the programme looks more down-to-earth and real. Perfect.

   My other comments about the overall storyline in the earlier post stand. It is missing something in the first half, but the second half and, in particular, the last act where Sam is in the diner to the rooftop scene with Annie are quite well done.

Rachelle Lefevre and Jason O’Mara in Life on Mars (unaired pilot)

   It’s still mostly inconceivable that everyone in the department knows Sam thinks he’s from the future, yet no one throws him into the funny farm. There’s a veiled threat, not much more. The story lacks humour and there is little “how far we have come” about it other than in technology and location—the social commentary seems to have disappeared for a straight twenty-first-century cop show that just happens to be set in 1972. There is only one sexist line—but in a 1972 police department, one would expect much more misogyny. Heck, there was more in The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
   I normally complain about network tinkering, but in this case I think it’s needed. I just hope the remake of the remake fixes the problems in Kelley’s Life on Mars, as some network types tend to worsen things. Simply having more dialogue with the creators—Graham, Pharoah and Jordan—might help, rather than the two hours Kelley reportedly spent. Even The Office in the US had the hand of Gervais and Merchant. Life on Mars needs help, because, put simply, it lacks life.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Life on Mars USA—well, let’s say it’s little wonder ABC wants it reshot and the leak is a great way to get comments from fans, many of whom have downloaded the unscreened pilot as made by David E. Kelley and directed by Thomas Schlamme.
   The storyline is identical to the original, which is not a bad thing, but the British media comments about the American version lacking something are not far off the mark. They are not being anti-American or unduly negative.
   First, some neutral comments: the LA setting does not annoy me. To me, New York City, especially Manhattan, is not different enough between 1972 and 2008 unless one heads down to Battery Park and some of the reclaimed-land bits. It should also shut up all those who moaned about the Bowie song not being on the TVCs (a “duh moment”—of course it would be in the programme but not in ads, and since when was the song in the British ads?).
   Now, the good points:

• the second half does draw you in, even when you know what is happening;
• re-elect Nixon posters on the high street;
• no Nelson, replaced by a waitress pouring coffee at a cafeteria—good character, but Sam needs someone whom he can chat to;
• a reference by Colm Meaney to Klingons;
• Annie being a detective actually works; and Rachelle Lefèvre gives a good performance;
• the briefing scene with Sam and Annie and the camera going around the performers;
• sexism by a detective during Sam’s briefing (responding, ‘Her titties’);
• the musical score (by Edmund Butt?);
• Sam’s realization that Colin Raimes lives next door to Kenmore—well acted and directed;
• final shot of Sam and Annie on the hotel roof with ‘Life on Mars’ playing is a different take on the original—and is quite nicely done.

   And the bad points:

• dull first act;
• Sam tells everyone in the police station that he’s from 2007 so it gives no reason for him to have a closer relationship with Annie;
• bad special effects for 1972 Los Angeles (though I assume these are temporary) and I can see modern cars in the high street scene where Sam goes into the record store;
• Stephanie Chaves-Jacobsen is very pretty but I felt no chemistry between her and Jason O’Mara—while they are meant to be distant, I never felt Jason’s Sam Tyler cared for Maya before her abduction;
• Gene Hunt is not foul-mouthed and not even politically incorrect except for the orientation (punching Sam) and abusing a woman helping with police enquiries;
• generally no sexism other than the scene mentioned earlier—contrast this to, say, the movie The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, from 1974;
• no racism (an Obama-for-president reference might be interesting if it’s remade);
• Gene Hunt asking Sam nicely to join him for an interrogation—and lack of tension between the two beyond unconvincingly trading a few punches;
• absence of humour;
• no Chris and Ray, and Lenny Clarke is no substitute (I expect he will be recast);
• not much in the way of contrasting 1972 and 2007 methods;
• Sam’s 1972 arrival does not seem particularly tormenting to him and I was not drawn in to his feeling any confusion. Jason O’Mara almost seems too rigid and suffers in comparison to John Simm;
• bland performances from O’Mara and Meaney—watch the scene when Beryl Raimes tells them about the music next door ceasing to annoy her and contrast it to the original—which can be blamed in part on direction;
• certain lines copied verbatim from the original.

   I know the majority of people who will see the US one will not have seen the original. However, I believe it lacks a lot of sparkle and even cohesiveness and it could harm the series’ chances Stateside. The comparisons do need to be made: the success of Life on Mars was based on how deeply we were drawn in to Sam Tyler’s predicament. The American producers need to understand (if they don’t already) that it is possible to create that effect, but possibly with another director (with respect to Mr Schlamme).
   This first US version lacks that depth—and it is nothing to do with it being American.
   A remake prior to the fall début in ABC might not be a bad idea because there is room for improvement, especially for the underdeveloped Gene Hunt character and O’Mara’s rigidity.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Some reports in on US Life on Mars are emerging. ABC says that the programme is actually ahead of schedule with new scripts for the series, according to Mediaweek, while Den of Geek has leaked information about the pilot (which will be reshot anyway, so it might be worth holding back on judging what Americans will see till later). No wonder the new producers and the network have ordered a near-carte blanche remake of the remake if we learn that the American version has a ‘1972 oddly free of sexism and racism it seems’ and is a ‘litigation-friendly homogenous [sic] 70s cop show that’s not remotely evocative of anything’. It summarizes, ‘this is a version of Life on Mars where everything that made the original worthwhile has been bleached out, leaving a hollow husk to twist in the wind.’
   It also believes the Americanized Gene Hunt is not funny, there are no Chris and Ray, and Annie Cartwright is a love interest for Sam almost straight off.
   The Guardian’s blog also has a review of the rejected pilot, though it notes that it will be remade. It gives a thumbs-down to Irish actor Jason O’Mara, which does not bode well for the series.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend