11 posts tagged “annie norris”

Spoilers ahead. [PS.: in fact, if you scroll down and don’t want to know, be warned: there are humungous pictures from the last episode. So shut your eyes as you scroll.]
   Well, I was totally wrong about why American Sam Tyler got to 1973.
   But when they showed the scene of Sam waking up, I instantly figured it out what had happened and was right. I guess this particular outcome must have been at the back of my mind if I could see it all in a second. A few weeks ago, my father did say, ‘He better not have been dreaming for the whole series.’ Sorry, Dad.
   No, I didn’t think it was a good ending. At least not when compared with the original. I expected something much cleverer, more mythological.
   There were some cheeky aspects to it, with the ‘Special Guest Star: Lisa Bonet’ credit inserted just to keep us guessing—and because one of the producers let slip that Ms Bonet wouldn’t be in the finalé.
   But to have Sam Tyler—Spaceman—wake up in 2035 on a Mars mission, having lived in some virtual-reality world as part of the deep sleep needed for the long trip to the red planet, seemed a farce to me and a let-down. In fact, all I could do was laugh as the final few minutes unfolded. It was, let’s admit it, stupid.
   I imagine that if the series had gone on for another season and there were more “trip to Mars” clues, then it could have been more fulfilling. After 16 episodes, this wasn’t cool, and akin to Pam waking up in Dallas.

   It does explain why Gene Hunt is older and I kept calling him a father-figure, but for him to be ‘Major Tom’ Tyler was a surprise. Vic, it turns out, was the dark side of Sam.
   It’s still hard to process because most of those clues littered throughout the series meant very little—especially those that were quasi-religious.
   It seemed like it would explain more, with Sam arriving in Hyde—something a few of us speculated with the original series in 2007. It added to the mystery to learn that Sam was conceived there. Another good part was Rose Tyler (I still can’t get over this name) recognizing that ‘Det Skywalker’ is what she expected her son to grow up to be like. But so what? It all gets undone in the final scene.
   Highlight of the episode was Sam visiting an elderly Annie in 2010, a scene that some of us expected to see in the original as we speculated what had happened to the original Sam Tyler. That would have been brilliant as an outcome had Sam woken up in 2009. We also saw Sam and Annie finally kiss—a scene many of us waited for. But it’s all for nought: Sam doesn’t find 1973 more fulfilling and he and Annie wake up as colleagues on the mission, she having had no experience of falling in love with him.
   You get the feeling that it was a case of “all that work for nothing” and now that Col Annie Norris (‘I just pretend it’s far, far into the future, and they work for me’), Major Tom, Sam, Chris and Ray have got there, thanks to Frank Morgan at Mission Control and Windy the computer, the question remains: so what?
   The only consolation is the white shoe of Philip Glenister—well, Harvey Keitel, but in tribute to the original Gene Genie—reaching the red planet.

Last week’s penultimate US Life on Mars offered some surprises—such as the Aries name re-appearing at a toy factory which sold the Rovers that Sam found in an earlier episode. Special Agent Frank Morgan was far more sinister than the original British DCI of the same name, and might have been a red herring thrown in by the American writers to put those of us who watched the originals off! (Bravo!) And one scene was directly from the first episode of the original Life on Mars: Sam standing on top of the roof looking at jumping off as a means of returning to 2008–9 and Annie stopping him.
   One scene was eerily reminiscent of the original’s final, too. There, Sam put his hand on Annie’s heart again, sensing it beating. Here, Annie put Sam’s hand there, to prove she was real.
   I have not seen the Spanish version but to my knowledge, the rooftop scene has now been filmed three times: once in the original, once in the unaired pilot and now once in the US remake. It was interesting the US writers put it in the 16th episode and I believe it is significant that they did.
   It could also explain why the last act of the first US aired episode omitted this scene. We shall see this week as the American remake of Life on Mars concludes and we find out why Sam Tyler is in 1973.

Great US Life on Mars: a remake of the eighth UK episode, so the basic storyline was the same—and because of the shorter running time, some bits were missed, and there was less depth to the Sam–Annie relationship caused in part by the still inexplicable introduction of Lee Tergesen’s character, Lee Crocker, into the US show. Gene played a bit part here, but he did in the original version of this episode as well.
   Vic Tyler (Dean Winters), is crueller in his American incarnation, and it’s interesting to note that Ruth Tyler (Jennifer Ferrin) is called Rose Tyler here—something I missed a few weeks ago. (For Life on Mars trivia buffs, Sam Tyler’s surname came about when the daughter of one of the writers suggested it, after watching Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler character in Doctor Who. It’s very interesting that the American writers chose Rose as Sam’s mother’s name.) And because of the shorter running time, there was one disappointment: both Sam and Annie had to verbalize things that we had to figure out for ourselves in the original (e.g. Sam realizing he had blocked the memory of Annie’s death at the hands of Vic). We also missed the part where Sam told Ruth, in the original, what to tell young Sam about his father.
   But what a cliffhanger! It reminds me of the call Sam received at the end of episode nine in the UK (second series, episode one) from Hyde 2612 and he seems genuinely fearful of the rings from the black rotary-dial phone. This time, Sam gets clues from the printing and form codes at the NYPD to take him to an address, 35 Stewart Drive. There, the phone rings as soon as Sam enters the house. And the call is of an electronically muffled voice, one that can hear Sam.
   Before you think that this is a straight adaptation of the British series and it’s DCI Frank Morgan calling, the call’s contents are chilling. The lights are flickering in the room as in Jekyll, and the script goes something like this:

Caller: Hello, Sam.
Sam: You can hear me.
Caller: Of course I can hear you. You’re doing a good job, Sam. I need you to do something for me.
Sam: Who is this?
Caller: I need you to go to the basement.
Sam: Why?
Caller: The basement, Sam. Across the room, behind you. I need you to go down to the basement, Sam.

And the credits begin.
   So: is this the American equivalent of Alex Drake’s Pierrot clown or the Test Card Girl? Because it doesn’t appear to be the American Frank Morgan calling. The preview suggests there is a nutter decapitating police officers, and the call could be from the killer. No Gene, Sam, Ray and Chris getting into the Cortina and saying, ‘Pub.’ ’Pub.’ ’Pub.’ … ‘Pub.’ Not a happy, upbeat ending—but it wouldn’t have worked here anyway.
   It appears this is where the Americans will break for now. The series stops here and does not return until January 28, 2009, after Lost, on ABC. It is a logical place to conclude things—this story was the season finalé in Britain—but by that week I imagine we will all be waiting for the next series of Ashes to Ashes more.
   Here is the January 28 preview and I don’t think there is a British equivalent this time. This, as far as I can tell, is where the two shows really begin to part company. And the Americans seem to be taking a darker route, which is what has also been promised for Ashes to Ashes in 2009.

Not a bad Life on Mars last night, a remake of the fourth episode in the UK. It wasn’t changed as greatly as the last two, sticking very closely to the original storyline so there were no surprises. (It would have been nice to have credited Ashley Pharoah for it since there were no substantial plot differences, though admittedly David Wilcox plugged what I saw were plot holes in the original, and resolved things better in the shorter time he had.) The Sam–Gene relationship was developed more, as with the original (the father-figure image that the last two stories cultivated wasn’t present), and we do hear ‘Gene Genie’. As with the original at this point, Sam’s and Annie’s relationship develops a little. Instead of ‘Det Insp Boland’, Sam’s alias is ‘Luke Skywalker’. Unsurprisingly, Gene’s ‘fruit-picking sodomite’ line was omitted after his attitude of the third US episode—Harvey Keitel’s Gene is less homophobic—and it is not established what the villain’s sexuality is, anyway. The hallucination scene, where Sam is the victim of a honeytrap, has Sam seeing not just Adrienne (the lovely Odette Yustman—formerly of October Road, which had the same producers, and from Cloverfield), the woman who slipped him a mickey, but Annie—which was a (pleasant) surprise. Finally, we see Annie out of the station in a dress—showing that Gretchen Mol remains very easy on the eyes, regardless of what she wears.
   But the greatest kudos is reserved for Jason O’Mara, who gives a strong performance as Sam Tyler. While John Simm will remain the archetype for those fans like me who saw the original, O’Mara made the role his own in last night’s episode. I was wrong when I said he was the weak link in the Kelley pilot: the man needs a good script and good direction.

US Life on Mars got off to a good start. The script was neatly changed (though I wonder about the whole Colin Raimes kid scene at the end replacing the Sam on the rooftop one), and it still worked. Jason O’Mara gives a far, far better performance than he did in the first attempt, and there were good edits to get the programme down to the 42-minute broadcast time allowed by ABC.
   He has allowed himself to be more human, less beefcake, and while John Simm is hard to beat, O’Mara has come far closer with an honest portrayal of Sam Tyler.
   The relationship between Sam and Maya in the US version is softer, less distant, compared with the original—which gives the American Sam a greater motive to want to get back from 1973.
   Harvey Keitel’s Gene Hunt is not as present as Philip Glenister’s was in the original, but he has more screen presence than the first American Gene, Colm Meaney.
   Gretchen Mol shines and gives a deeper portrayal than the pilot’s Rachelle Lefèvre.
   American Ray and Chris (Michael Imperioli and Jonathan Murphy) had relatively small roles, as in the original.
   The set design gave 1973 the muted, dark tones that most associate with that period—again, a great improvement on the Kelley pilot.
   And the scene with the World Trade Center in 1973 was one that trumped the Manchester original. Sam, in the UK, sees a billboard for a motorway that hasn’t been built; here, he sees the Twin Towers.
   In all, the Americans have done well and it should silence many in the UK who were prepared for the worst.
   It is a far better adaptation than the British attempts at Who’s the Boss?, Married with Children, and Outrageous Fortune, and, I would guess, Bewitched and Law & Order.
   And it is a far better adaptation than many British shows that have been altered by the Americans, such as Fawlty Towers and Steptoe and Son.
   There were a few changes even to the US preview scenes, such as the ‘throwdown’ line (now uttered by Sam, not Gene). But it hung together very well and as the American producers wish to take a different direction with the series’ mythology, it allows for that, too.
   Nelson’s role has been reduced dramatically, plus he is now played by a white actor.
   Some scenes were eeriely familiar, even with the songs chosen (‘Life on Mars’, obviously, but ‘Baba O’Riley’, filmed as a mirror image to allow for the American traffic going the opposite way), which were identical to the UK choices. We also did not have an Americanized version of Gene’s ‘Anything happens to this motor’ line.
   While the original is still superior, this was a solidly made first episode.
   Unlike the original, I won’t be playing this over and over again, but I will be happy to watch it if it aired here.
   Congratulations to ABC, Appelbaum, Nemec and Rosenberg, and the rest of the folks associated with the remake.

ABC has made a ‘Starter Kit’ to introduce people to Life on Mars, beginning this Thursday. The clip below shows many scenes familiar to fans of the original, and compared with the Kelley effort, it looks very good. Gene Hunt’s most (in)famous line gets changed by one word, but Appelbaum and Nemec, the new producers, seem to have hit the formula correctly. Importantly, there appears to be social commentary hidden within the show, which the Kelley pilot lacked.
   British fans may take this to be an equivalent to the old BBC site, which is still up. Just that broadband has moved on a bit since the original series’ début in 2006.

Spoiler TV has some more publicity shots from the US Life on Mars, and here we can see some of the effort that has gone in to making the American version reasonably faithful to the British one. I have only chosen five for commentary; Spoiler TV has far more.

   Haven’t seen Denise Huxtable for a while. Lisa Bonet has a recurring, guest-starring role as Maya Daniels, Sam Tyler’s present-day girlfriend. In this respect you can see the potential for the storylines relating to African–Americans and mixed relationships, in the same way as the original covered the topic in relation to Ugandan Asians (Archie Panjabi was the original Maya Roy).    Sam (Jason O’Mara) doesn’t ask for a ‘PC terminal’ but the ad did show he had similar, albeit Americanized, dialogue as he arrives at the 125th Precinct of the NYPD. The set is far more 1973 than the original remake’s attempt.    Michael Imperioli’s portrayal of Ray Carling is more in line with Dean Andrews’: cheeky and an opponent to Sam’s arrival in the precinct.    Melissa Silver has a guest-starring role in the pilot as Suzie Tripper, and like her British counterpart (Jane Riley as Dora Keens), has to spend time in the lost-and-found to help Gene and Sam with their enquiries.    And despite Gretchen Mol’s character Annie Norris having a different surname to Liz White’s, the briefing scene where Sam gets into the psyche of the killer appears to be far more faithful to the original than David E. Kelley’s attempt, which seemed more like Jason O’Mara trying to seduce Rachelle Lefèvre (the second Annie Cartwright) in front of the department.
   So, no real surprises in the storyline of the première episode in October, but it will be very interesting to see how the episode hangs together with the action transferred from Manchester to New York (by way of Los Angeles).

ABC has also released individual cast members’ photographs. The first is for Jason O’Mara as Det Sam Tyler of the NYPD: note the background is now New York, rather than the all-too-polished 2007 interior backdrop of the earlier image, perhaps to cement the idea that this is now set back east and not on the coast.

   And kids, that keyboard next to Gretchen Mol and Jonathan Murphy is called a typewriter.

This is beginning to look more like Life on Mars as we know it. This is the newest cast photo from ABC, and it’s interesting to note the brown tones, the complete cast (Sam, Gene, Annie, Ray and Chris) and even the 1973 hairstyles.

   Looks like the new producers of US Life on Mars took a lot of the criticism to heart. I am looking forward to the new series as a fix before the second series of Ashes to Ashes begins.
   Michael Imperioli even gets a Ray Carling perm and Jonathan Murphy looks the part of Chris.
   Compare the above to the cast photograph of the much-criticized first remake from David E. Kelley and those bright 2007 colours:    And now the original English cast (I could not find a comparable on-set photograph): or, even better yet, this second-series downloaded image: Of course, in 1973 a typesetter would have known not to have set on with a cap.