Anyway, I wrote about the TV series Life on Mars at Mayor Sam last fall, because I loved the concept so, so much. (Those ABC bastards don’t even have shows up to link to anymore!!) Briefly, a cop gets hit by a car in the present, and wakes up still a cop, still in NYC, in 1973, and spends the rest of the series trying to figure out if he’s in a coma, dead, time travel, etc. The episodes were filmed with a yellow glow, and include some great groovy scenes of hippies, old cars and attitudes, and even the Twin Towers (in the first episode only. Why, did the CGI cost too much?) Also lots of 70’s tunes, of course. I’m not into music at all, but a lot of people liked that the most.
The actor is a quite hunky, 40ish Irish guy who never let his accent slip once. Harvey Keitel – well, I’ve liked him better in other things. I really liked Gretchen Moll, and grew to like her more. The Sopranos guy with a stache overacted.
But I want to be clear that Life on Mars didn’t die a peaceful death. ABC killed it, with ugly knife wounds all over the place. They were GIVEN the premise, and a lot of the episode plots, from the very successful UK series of the same name (which has a spinoff). ABC HAD the setup, the familiar audience, the interest, the timing, the characters, even some of the dialogue from the England show. The cast changed, of course, and the one big change, and quite an improvement, was just moving the show from England to NYC. So why couldn’t they keep it alive???
, the rare show that works as both a comedy and a drama, and is totally, always compelling, has just recently been pronounced dead by 
, (yes, by the same C. S. Lewis who wrote the Narnia books, which are much better than the movie 
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