90 posts tagged “life on mars”

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.

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.

It’s understandable that TV One in New Zealand has to cut around 13 minutes out of each Life on Mars episode to fit commercials in, but why did it have to be the Camberwick Green sequence from episode five of series two? It was the best bit! (Sam still says he comes out of a box when he gets to the nick, and local viewers will be wondering what on earth he was on about.)
   For Kiwi Lifers, here is the missing bit.

Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos) will join the cast of US Life on Mars, according to Entertainment Weekly. The Hollywood Reporter, which broke the news, says Imperioli is the American Ray Carling. This does bode well: it means at least one of Ray and Chris will make it back into the script; the original US pilot had removed both characters.

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.)

Just been brought to my attention: your own downloadable Gene Genie cellphone illustration!

http://www.voeveo.com/images/wallpaper/81694

It’s Ashes to Ashes Gene rather than Life on Mars Gene. And, fortunately, not US Life on Mars Capt Gene Hunt of the LAPD.
   I should also note that Voeveo is a Wellington, New Zealand-based company (as all the great internationals should be), one that has done well globally in spite of our government.

Ashes to Ashes will be coming to New Zealand, according to the BBC. Though by the time it is on, I probably will have bought the DVD of the second series from Amazon UK. It will be on Prime, which either means no one will watch it, or it will become a destination hit as the Beeb’s Top Gear and Doctor Who have. I wonder if there are enough Lifers here since most mainstream viewers in 2007 went to watch Ugly Betty instead of Life on Mars, but if marketed with Doctor Who it might work.
   It would be nice to see Ashes here in New Zealand in the same year rather than having to wait a year as we did with TV One, maybe a little after Life on Mars finishes.
   Other concluded deals for series are listed in a press release sent to Scoop.

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

LAPD Det Sam Tyler in US Life on Mars should have been played by a black American actor, with due respect to Jason O’Mara. It would really highlight the race problems of the 1970s, the progress (and lack thereof in some quarters) in US race relations, and take Life on Mars into its own direction. It was an area inadequately explored in the original, but with the larger black community in the US, it’s an inspired opportunity. Since I have been watching re-runs of Day Break here, someone like Taye Diggs could pull it off.

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?

   The guy on the right is even called Gene H. In fact, I suggest the following image is printed off and posted in the scriptwriters’ rooms for inspiration:

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: 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.

   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.