50 posts tagged “jason o’mara”

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.

Zap2It has a good interview with two of the producers of US Life on Mars, Josh Appelbaum and Scott Rosenberg, on the finalé on Wednesday night there.
   At least the show has been given a proper sending off from ABC there.
   The story is rather brief so I won’t excerpt much. But it does make me wonder how they will tie in all the episodes this week, as there are some wildly varying possibilities of why American Sam is in 1973. From the story:

“It wasn’t terrifically complicated[,]” to have the season finale also be the series ender, Rosenberg said in a phone interview Tuesday. “We always knew what the season finale would be, and we always knew what the series finale would be. We just didn't expect to get to the series finale this quickly.”

   Since the beginning the producers have said Jason O’Mara’s Sam Tyler will not be in a coma, so that rules out the original reason.
   I still think Sam is in a USSR ESP experiment, but who knows?

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.

Variety has some additional info on the US Life on Mars finalé.
   For a start, the writers were planning a big revelation anyway, and only the second half needed a rewrite to reveal more of why Sam Tyler is in 1973.
   Variety reiterates that it won’t be the same as the original Sam Tyler’s reason.
   Secondly, both Michael Imperioli and Jonathan Murphy—American Ray and Chris—will be present, despite being gunned down in last week’s episode.

I didn’t see that one coming. And there are major spoilers in this blog post, more than usual. Try not to even scroll down if you don’t want to know because the caption in the photo below will give a lot away.
   Last night’s US Life on Mars was a huge departure from the original. This is the third-to-last American episode, so the makers might well be trying to tie up loose ends. Or, we might begin to see if there is a way Sam Tyler can change the past—in that Journeyman sort of a way.
   Scriptwriters for the 15th episode were Sonny Postiglione and Tracy McMillan; McMillan, of course, had scripted a few of the more imaginative episodes this season as well as one of the Journeymans.
   Before we get to the surprises, it was a neat in-joke to have Sam go undercover as an Irishman from Dublin which, of course, is where actor Jason O’Mara hails from. There was a comment about how authentic his Irish accent sounded. Though for a second I thought there was another Doppelgänger as with last week’s remake.
   New Jersey-born actor Peter Greene always plays a good villain, and this episode was no exception. (Folks might remember him from The Mask.)
   The first big departure was answering a question I had of the original: why did Sam Tyler so fear confronting his younger self? Here, he explains that he fears turning himself into someone darker. But, as the episode closed, Sam does indeed speak with his younger self in 1973 and there is an understanding that he has not affected himself negatively.
   The second huge departure happens in the final scene. Greene’s character, Jimmy McManus, shoots Ray and Chris, each with four rounds. It’s going to be remarkably hard for the two of them to survive this, unless the final two episodes get very supernatural or cosmic. And if they don’t, I guess there’ll be no American Ashes to Ashes.

   As to the crime of the week, it wasn’t particularly strong—but they weren’t that clever in the original series sometimes, either. The joy, for me, was always trying to find out why Sam was in 1973 and the character development that went with that. This was present here, and it is a shame there will only be 17 US Life on Mars episodes just as the show hits its stride.
   I can’t see it going beyond 24 comfortably, admittedly, but 17 do seem a tad too few.
   Without Ray and Chris, will there be more Gene Hunt next week? And as the original series’ final two were quite impressive, will the Americans be able to match the quality?

Citing a lack of resonance with the audience, ABC has announced the American version of Life on Mars will finish after this season.
   I learned this when I got back from a full-on day out of the office, in an email sent from Tanya on our team.
   It should mean the run will be longer than the UK’s, and fans (and I count myself as one—I like both UK and US versions) won’t have to wait long to find out what happened to US Sam Tyler.
   I still think he’s part of an ESP experiment for the Soviet Union, inadvertently trying to discover who or what God is.

The latest US Life on Mars was another adapted UK story, as I had expected from last week’s promo, but the plot was changed hugely. It shows that the American writers are getting into the swing of things, and it was an enjoyable 40 minutes.
   The reduction of 19 minutes from the original means many elements were omitted, but I think I am biased when I say I enjoyed this story more than last week’s, which was a fully original American-penned script.
   For UK fans, it was a remake of the first episode of the second series written by Matthew Graham, which guest-starred Marc Warren as Tony Crane, Yasmin Bannerman as Eve, and Kevin McNally (sometimes credited as Kevin R. McNally) as Det Supt Harry Woolf. Chris Bowers, less well known in the US context than Warren, played Crane, New York-based actress Kerry Bishé took the Eve role (consequently, being played by a Caucasian, the references to the mixed relationship were omitted), while Harry Woolf was, surprisingly, played by former US senator Fred Thompson (usually credited as Fred Dalton Thompson).
   I wonder if the Senator knows of the fate of the original Harry Woolf. Let’s say it doesn’t quite follow the DA Arthur Branch path.
   You may or may not agree with Thompson’s politics, but I always thought he was a fine actor.
   The dialogue was similar to the original’s (I can still hear Warren say, ‘Your DI Tyler thinks he’s from the future’), especially the scene after Crane is arrested, though there was less interplay between Sam and Gene. And that’s where this remake of the ninth episode falls over: a lot of time is given to the Sam–Ray conflict and to Annie investigating on Sam’s behalf when a restraining order is issued against him. The original was superior on most counts.
   In 2007, Graham played on the contrast between the two men’s policing methods, but only after the first series set it up so well. Stateside, the Sam–Gene relationship is markedly different, and Sam spends as much time at odds with Ray Carling than he does with his superior. (In fact, for inexplicable reasons, Michael Imperioli—US Ray—gives a VO as the episode starts.) This may be to do with Harvey Keitel’s age and the father-figure approach has been creeping in gradually over the course of the US remake.
   One nice touch was Keitel reading a newspaper clipping with the headline ‘Rogue lieutenant’, which surely was a tribute to his 1992 film, Bad Lieutenant.
   It was still a very good episode (and could only be less well considered when compared with the original), and probably because I was spending it watching for the differences, I didn’t mind that there was no advance of the Aries Project storyline established a few weeks back.
   The original episode’s first minute and a half, as British viewers saw it, is below.

And the second series’ trailer, in which one can hear Warren’s line:

After a duffer last week, the latest US Life on Mars was, for a change, brilliant.
   There was no British equivalent to this ninth episode, which continues from the cliff-hanger of the seventh. We discover Ray Carling has a brother and the plot appears to be an inquiry into his disappearance.
   But Sam was hearing a strange message from someone who seems to know he is in 1973. Considering he came up, in the seventh episode, with the address at 35 Stewart Drive from printer’s codes at the bottom of forms, it’s too coincidental for him to find a dead body there. Someone is pulling the strings.
   The great thing is that there were good Sam and Annie scenes, one of the things that worked with the original series.
   However, as with last week, we no longer hear his life-support machines or any sign of the present.
   Annie is puzzled by Sam’s ability to predict her close call at the hands of Vic Tyler in the seventh episode—a remake of the original eighth. In the American version, Sam shares his visions of a woman with a red dress with Annie, which his British counterpart did not. She also reveals some of the things he has told her about 2008—Sam’s knowledge of “the future” was another entertaining element of the original, which this episode had.
   I think we can write off the coma theory. The mystery caller appears at the end of this episode, though his face is not shown. He takes the tape of Sam’s interview from the FBI agent leading the inquiry, smashing those of Gene Hunt and Ray Carling. (Does smashing the plastic spool do anything to magnetic tape? Clearly this chap is not from 1973!) He places the tape into a folder marked ‘Aries Project’, clearly connected to the CCCP—the Soviet Union. (If it is top secret, why would this be marked? Why would the logo even have English lettering?) Inside the folder are plans of one of the miniature “toys” that US Sam has been seeing.

   This is a great departure from the original, and sets up a great mystery—I am getting the same buzz I did as the second series in the UK came to a conclusion and the fan base was speculating like crazy over what was happening to Sam.
   I can also say this is the first totally original script—the third aired so far—that has the same level of intrigue as the British episodes.
   Remember, as with Ashes to Ashes and Alex Drake, there are scenes in US Life on Mars that do not feature Sam Tyler, so Gene, Ray, Chris and Annie have their own lives independently of him—which means this is not of Sam’s mind’s making.
   So, what has happened to American Sam Tyler? Because I do not think Aries is a red herring and the original script is penned by one of the story editors, Bryan Oh, along with Tracy McMillan (Journeyman). Last week there was a mention of nanobots and a Soviet scientist.
   If there are Journeyman shades here, then who else knows about Sam? Is he a Soviet agent who is part of an experiment in remote future projection, someone who has believed so much in the visions that he does not believe he is back in his own time? But that the experiments left him in New York, and his Soviet masters are trying to learn about his experiences? That during the height of the Cold War, the Soviets used this method to get future technology (hence Sam is a cop, in a position of authority) and that one of the few things that can get sent back are nanobots? That the Mars Rover in US episode 2 actually was sent to space as part of this experiment? Does the USSR have stations scattered through time rather than space? Is there an astrological significance to Aries, the first sign of the zodiac? How does this tie in with the Cataldo Houses?
   It sounds way-out to anyone who has only ever seen the original series, and I certainly never heard this theory bandied about chat rooms back in 2006 when Life on Mars neared its end.
   If US Life on Mars continues on this path, with this depth of writing, I will be very pleased, and ABC should be as well.

I’m not terribly convinced by the latest US Life on Mars.
   Good points: Gene Hunt referring to the interrogation room as the ‘Lost and Found’, as in the original. It was probably in the US première but it got edited out. In fact, I believe this was the first mention in the US series, and I wonder if American viewers get the significance.
   Bad points: thanks, folks, for ending episode 7 on a cliffhanger and not resolving it in episode 8. Very bad move. Who was the caller? Was it Hyde 2612?
   The introduction of Gene’s daughter as a potential love interest: too early to tell where this will lead, but the Sam–Annie–Lee love triangle appears now to be a square.
   And was it just me, or was the acting a little worse?
   Interesting trivia: there were scenes where Gene was on his own, with no Sam. This is a very clear departure (apart from flying miniature toys going around the place) from the original series, where Sam was in every shot. This is something that Ashes to Ashes shares: Alex Drake is not in every shot, and the characters have their own lives.
   There were no sounds from life-support machines in the entire episode.
   It was established early on in US Life on Mars that Ray is homophobic—as he is in Ashes to Ashes—but there was a strange line in this one that reminded me of the direction Ashes’ writers were taking his character in. I don’t recall it, and I might wait till it airs on TV3 here before I see it again. I’m not terribly keen to watch this eighth episode again—as an original US-only story, it lacks something, namely there is no development on why Sam is there.|
   One reviewer online believes Sam has jumped into a 1973 TV show, which is possible. I knew we could strike coma off as the reason US Sam is there, but right now I really cannot see if one possibility is stronger than another. The only people who know are the show’s US producers and Ashley Pharoah, who co-created the original version, and who apparently spilled the beans on Ashes to Ashes’ resolution in return.