11 posts tagged “nypd”

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.

Here’s a comparison of the opening title sequence between the British and American versions of Life on Mars. The latter is very close in terms of the scenes chosen with Sam’s accident and his first moments in 1973.

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.

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.

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).

It looks like the première to-air episode of US Life on Mars will have the same storyline as the original first episode, if I read between the lines of this Los Angeles Times article correctly.
   It hints at Jason O’Mara having to film the same story again and messing up one line, which gave me the clue that the story has gone over to the States. We can only hope that this remake of the remake, or, to be fair, the second attempt at the remake, is better than the rejected pilot with O’Mara, Colm Meaney and Rachelle Lefèvre.
   O’Mara thinks Sam Tyler might be in Purgatory, one of the theories explored by fans during the BBC series’ original run in 2006–7, as the new producers have changed the story’s mythology. Sam’s no longer in a coma.

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.

Production has begun (again) on the US Life on Mars, according to an ABC press release. We also get the surnames for two of the characters: Annie Cartwright becomes Annie Norris in the US version (I imagine Cartwright would be too Bonanza for American television) and Maya gains a surname, Daniels. The Manchester ‘A’ Division CID becomes the NYPD’s 125th Precinct.
   The way New York was in 1973, near bankruptcy, with a gloomy feeling, might just work better than the Los Angeles of 1972 that David E. Kelley envisaged.
   Most Lifers I know here, upon hearing that Harvey Keitel is the new Gene Hunt, finally feel some anticipation for the American remake.
   No news, meanwhile, on the Spanish remake, as far as I could locate without being fluent in Spanish.

A week before the start of the remake of the remake of Life on Mars in New York, news is emerging that Gretchen Mol will be cast as Annie Cartwright.
   I liked Rachelle Lefèvre in the role but Gretchen Mol is a promising alternative.
   Meanwhile, E! has an interview with the American Sam Tyler, Irishman Jason O’Mara, and executive producers Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec. This was filmed on the day that Harvey Keitel was cast as Lt Gene Hunt of the NYPD. It seems that Appelbaum understands Life on Mars better than David E. Kelley did, based on this interview.

   Also promisingly, Nemec told TV Squad that the ending for the US version is different. We knew this already but here’s a bit more:

Nemec stressed that Life on Mars will be its own show, not to be thought of as a true, full translation of the UK version of the series. He did say that he has an “end game” all drawn up and ready, and it’s different than the UK version. Of course, he wouldn't tell me what it was (honestly I didn’t try too hard to get it out of him). He did say that they can insert that end-game episode at any point, really, so they will not be leaving fans hanging, should the show not get a greenlight past a certain amount of episodes.