15 posts tagged “michael imperioli”

Spoilers ahead on US Life on Mars.

If US Sam Tyler was in pod 2B in the finalé of the American Life on Mars remake, why was Ray Carling 2A when his apartment number was 4A, or is this one of those sci-fi nerd questions?
   As to the ‘gene hunt’ Ray Carling refers to, I came far closer to that than I thought in this November blog post!

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.

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?

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:

A sneak preview of episode 15 of US Life on Mars. No idea which storyline this links to, if any, from the original series, though if there is a rival precinct, I can guess.

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.

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.