16 posts tagged “gretchen mol”

Gretchen Mol living in the future while some virtual reality anomaly happens and people started going back in time to not to 1973, but 1937. Sounds familiar. One of my favourite movies, but I sure didn’t expect its influence to go further …

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.

Bryan Oh’s script for the second episode of US Life on Mars was clever. Just as executive producer Scott Rosenberg told audiences last week, there were twists in the tale: notably Sam Tyler seeing a Mars Rover-like robot (not far off from my guessing it would parallel Fred Flintstone seeing the Great Gazoo on Digg) shining a light at him and prompting him to remember the present day.
   I like what Oh did: a departure from the original is not only important, it is encouraged by the UK creators of the show. While the episode, titled ‘The Real Adventures of the Unreal Sam Tyler’, was based on the original second episode in the UK, with certain characters re-used, the changes Bryan Oh made deservedly earned him a ‘Written by’ credit rather than a ‘Screenplay by’ one. He weaves in not only elements from episode two from the UK, but other ones (e.g. Sam seeing the present reflected in the glass). Other parts are Americanized: when Sam complains that the jail cells are like Guantanamo Bay, Chris responds that he has never been to Puerto Rico (Gene and Spain in the original); when Trent says, ‘All hail the Nixon administration,’ Sam mutters, ‘Don’t get too attached to it.’ Serious assaults at the banks were replaced with murders, reflecting the more violent nature of New York crime. And major plot elements are 100 per cent original, weaved in very well into the episode so that smartasses like me who saw the original cannot spoil it for others. Well done, Mr Oh.
   Harvey Keitel does indeed say, ‘Don’t move! You are surrounded by armed bastards!’, which brings the line back to that uttered by Philip Glenister as the original Gene Hunt.
   I am not sure about the introduction of Windy, Sam’s neighbour, played by Tanya Fischer, which seems to complicate the story (unless it’s part of the thread), though her appearance supposedly in the nude was about as startling as one could get! But do we need a hippie chick to potentially complicate matters if Sam and Annie are to develop feelings, not to mention a love triangle at work with Assistant District Attorney Lee Crocker, played by Lee Tergesen (Chett in the TV version of Weird Science)? (Crocker? Isn’t that the guy in Kojak?)
   Unless, of course, Windy takes the place of Nelson, the bartender, who in the American version had three meaningless lines in the first episode. She seems to be full of the wisdom that the original Nelson had, knowing a little more than we might expect (she reads Sam’s palm and says his fate line is bisected, like a record skipping: ‘the needle gets bumped and you’re grooving to a whole new beat’).
   And as Rosenberg and producers Appelbaum and Nemec indicated, episode two includes scenes with Sam proposing a dozen theories as to what has happened him, going beyond ‘Am I mad, in a coma or back in time?’ The new theories include a drug trip, alien abduction, virtual reality, death (‘one second away from life, one second away from death’?) and Purgatory.
   Hence the new title sequence with star Jason O’Mara has a different voiceover from the original with John Simm. ‘My name is Sam Tyler,’ he says. ‘I was in an accident and woke up in 1973. I don’t know how or why I am here, but whatever’s happened, it’s like I’ve landed on a different planet. Now maybe if I can work out the reason, I can get home.’ It mirrors the original in terms of its scenes.
   Sam first sees a robotic toy run behind him at the 125th Precinct, but when he follows it, it disappears. Later, he sees a life-size version of the robot, similar in appearance to the Mars (get it?) Rover, as David Bowie’s ‘Life on Mars’ is heard. It shines a light on him, and he hears, ‘Maya’ (his girlfriend in 1973), then the scenes from the season finalé (Sam following a woman in a red dress through the woods—I won’t say more for our American friends who have not seen it), before he recalls the present. When he busts Trent’s gang at the end, he finds a similar, but not the same, toy called a Rad Rover (fictional, I believe) among the goods that the villains are using to hide their heroin shipments. He keeps one, and looks at it at home. Gene reads a newspaper with an item about Skylab. Another clue?
   Theories: the robot is not real. It ties to Sam’s childhood rather than 2008. He’ll later find one at his home when he looks for himself as a four-year-old child in 1973. It represents how he imagined the robot to be when he played with it. It will also connect to the season finalé involving the red dress. Another clue: Sam cuts himself shaving as he does in the original second episode—which means he feels pain in 1973. This tied in to the series finalé in the UK; will it here?
   The acting highlight was the scene where Gene Hunt forces Sam Tyler to the street, demanding he clean up June’s blood. It was in the original, but Keitel and O’Mara are intense here, as strong as Glenister and Simm in the original. For those who doubted O’Mara’s acting from the Kelley pilot (including me), we were proved wrong in that scene. Kudos to the actors and to Michael Katleman, the director, on a very powerful scene. (Next best scene: the hospital fight, which was as funny as the original one.)
   Down side: the original was funnier—or it’s my preference for British humour.
   Next week, going by the episode guide, watch out for Sam meeting his Dad in 1973. Dean Winters (from TV series Oz; which Tergesen also appeared in) plays Vic Tyler. The story appears to be an all-original one, which I look forward to seeing.

The making-of scenes from future episodes of US Life on Mars are interesting, but what is it with Jason O’Mara’s accent in the interviews? In earlier interviews he sounds more like a Dublin transplant. While I can still detect the Irish accent, he is Americanizing.

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.

Jace at Televisionary has seen the US Life on Mars and says it still falls short of the original (especially Jason O’Mara versus John Simm in the role of Sam Tyler), but his comments are largely positive. He does have a complaint that the final scene from the first episode of the UK one is not in here—so I wonder if it will creep up elsewhere, since it did impact on the finalé. Meanwhile, on his site was the following two-minute-plus promotional trailer for the première episode:

   Quite a few familiar scenes here and I don’t think there will be surprises to anyone who has seen the original series, right down to some of the lines (e.g. the ‘king of the jungle’ quotation from Gene). I’m still looking forward to this.