'Life On Mars' Series Two

[Jonno]

It was a cracking episode, and just think - if the series hadn't been delayed by a week because of that football match a month or so back, we wouldn't have got an RT fold-out cover to celebrate the final episode, as it would have been in the Who issue instead!

[Jon Masters]

Anyone else seen the trailer for the last episode ? Looks bloody brilliant - I've completely changed my mind about what I think's going on, and can't wait until Tuesday now !!
(much more exciting than the DW one that was on before it )

[Rob McCow]

I hope it's a Prisoner style weird-out fest! That'll get them all wondering.

[Larry]

Anyone else seen the trailer for the last episode ? Looks bloody brilliant - I've completely changed my mind about what I think's going on, and can't wait until Tuesday now !!
(much more exciting than the DW one that was on before it )

i have and I'm a little annoyed at the BBC, as it dose seem a tad spoilerish.

[Perry Vale]

Watched episode 7 over the weekend, and it was bloody brilliant! can't wait for tonight's.

[Trudi G]

Woah! That ending totally threw me! Just when i thought i'd got it all worked out as well, lol!
It got me in the middle bit cos i started to believe that it really was all in his head, until he woke up! I didn't expect him to go back tho - that was genius

[Alex]

I really enjoyed that, and I wasn't expecting too. I just had a feeling the ending would be disappointing, but I found it to be really enjoyable stuff.

Of course the subtext is all a bit disturbing, suggesting that Sam chose to live in a fantasy world rather than the real one, and that random beatings and dodgy police work is more fun than sitting around in endless sterile meetings deciding what's right and wrong in a more logical and moralistically correct way. His jumping off the edge of the roof at the end could be seen as the action's of a mentally ill man who just doesn't want to live in this day and age too.

You could even go so far as to suggest that he dies as the little girl in the red dress turns off the screen (he heard that the doctor's were "losing him" on the radio at the end there after all).

But sod all that, I like to believe in a version of events where he and Annie end up happily ever after!

I'll miss the show, but I'm glad it came to an end in the way it did, I felt some episodes this series were missing something, and a bit by the numbers, but as it goes I'll remember it as a damn fine BBC1 show, something which is pretty rare these days.

And I'll especially miss Annie too. I don't know what it is, but her accent sooooo does it for me, it's similar to my Sheffield ex's which I really liked. I really need to move up north one day so I can date more women with voices like that

[Dirk Gently]

An interesting and slightly confusing end to the series but it was a happy ending of sorts. Sam got a life he wanted rather than the life he was stuck with.
A good series but I'm doubtful I'd get it on DVD.

[Darren]

Sooooooooooooo........


Whilst he was in the tunnel, he died, had the chance to say goodbye to his mum and then went back to the afterlife.

[Captain Tancredi]

I'd never seen this until tonight (extreme allergy to cop shows) and only watched it to confirm one thing- I can say with confidence that I've driven the engine featured in tonight's episode. She's 47402 'Gateshead' and she lives at the East Lancashire Railway in Bury- I got to drive her up and down Bury Bolton Street yard about nine years ago now.

The idea of somebody deliberately and knowingly choosing fantasy over reality is a little sad, though.

[Alex]

Whilst he was in the tunnel, he died, had the chance to say goodbye to his mum and then went back to the afterlife.

Ah, I didn't see it like that. I saw it that he came out of his coma, realised he hated the 21st century, and then jumped off the edge of the roof so he could return to the fantasy 1973 he had created in his mind.

I'm not sure by any means though...I think it was deliberately left open to various theories...

[Dirk Gently]

DeJa-Vu Alex?

[Rob McCow]

Awww! They kissed! But they don't even get on!

If you can't feel it, it isn't real.

Barmen are full of guff, aren't they?

Absolutely brilliant, brilliant series. And that for a show that focusses on more-or-less entirely self-contained episodes! How unfashionable, how 1973

A wonderful ending that gave us both answers.


That wife-swapping episode was still awful though.

[Paul Clement]

I'm not sure how I feel about the ending, as Alex has already mentioned, it seems a bit of a worrying end that he preferred to stay in a fantasy life rather than live out his real life. It also makes you wonder why he spent so much time, including this final episode, trying to wake up if his real life had become so dull to him.
However, the episode was very good, and it's been the best show on the tv for the last couple of years too.

[stephenhannan]

But of course it's 1973 when separate realities were so recognised. Carlos Castanada, Aldious Huxley et al. Acid inspired realities with the desire that true oneness with life was to be ready to let go. The pinnicle of lifes acheivement.

How 1973

How Life on Mars

[Trudi G]

Was he really alive tho? He said that you know when you're alive because you can feel something, and when he cut his hand he didn't feel anything. Was that just a metaphorical not feeling, or was that a real not feeling, meaning he was dead, and when he jumped off the building he had accepted it? Was he really time travelling back to the past and by killing himself it meant he could permanently stay? Because how could he be certain that throwing himself off a building wouldn't kill him or even send him somewhere else?
I think it's been cleverly left up to the mind of the viewer to decide.

[Darren]

You could even go so far as to suggest that he dies as the little girl in the red dress turns off the screen (he had just heard that the doctor's were losing him on the radio just at the end there after all).

Ahh yes. Possibly as you saw him dressing, he had already relapsed back into a coma, and ultimately died.

[Darren]

I think it's been cleverly left up to the mind of the viewer to decide

Yeah, somehow, if he had just come back to 2006, it would have been an anti- climax.

[Alex]

I'm surprised we didn't see him checking in to past events when he was back in 2006. He seemed to be back in the present for a fair amount of time (recovering from the coma, seeing his mum, going back to work full time), you'd have thought he'd have gone through the records to see if Gene Hunt even existed, and if they all died / were seriously hurt that day.

The more I think about it, the more I go with the 'it was all a coma induced dream, and he chose to return to it at the end of the episode', and that he basically died at the end, bringing his lives in 1973 and 2006 to a close. Which is all pretty bleak stuff.

Edit: Last week I wrote:

I really hope it doesn't end with Sam being giving the choice to stay in 73 with Annie or go back to the present without her, but I've a vague feeling this might be the case

Well, I was sort of right. Vaguely. Okay, just a bit then...

[Darren]

Let's not forget Ashes To Ashes. How will that be played out now?

[Alex]

Well that's the problem, Ashes to Ashes seems very likely to be made, and I can't see a way of it existing which doesn't invalidate the ending we've just seen. Though presumably they'll do something to tie it in with it...hopefully...there will surely have to be some explanation as to why Sam's not around anymore at the least.

[Jonno]

My take on it was that Sam didn't actually wake up from his coma in 2006/7 - he was dreaming all that stuff about being back in the present day, hence why he couldn't feel the cut in his hand. His leaping off the roof to deny 2006 and find himself back in 1973 for me brought us right back to the first episode of the first series, in which he was going to jump off a high building in 1973 to get back to 2006 and deny the reality of 1973 - but was halted by Annie.

The other reason I don't think he actually came out of his coma is for the fact that the final message on the radio was the present day confirming that he was slipping away, i.e. he'd never come out of the coma.

BTW, all the slow-mo shootings of the regulars was clearly cribbed from the final episode of another much loved cult show that originated in the 70s!

[stephenhannan]

My take on it was that Sam didn't actually wake up from his coma in 2006/7 - he was dreaming all that stuff about being back in the present day, hence why he couldn't feel the cut in his hand. His leaping off the roof to deny 2006 and find himself back in 1973 for me brought us right back to the first episode of the first series, in which he was going to jump off a high building in 1973 to get back to 2006 and deny the reality of 1973 - but was halted by Annie.

The other reason I don't think he actually came out of his coma is for the fact that the final message on the radio was the present day confirming that he was slipping away, i.e. he'd never come out of the coma.

BTW, all the slow-mo shootings of the regulars was clearly cribbed from the final episode of another much loved cult show that originated in the 70s!

So is there a way back for Avon and Co then?

[Rob McCow]

Blakes 7 - Life On Mars crossover? Never!

Also the bit where he called out for Annie, opened the door to his flat and the girl was there made me jump out of my skin!

[Jonno]

Actually, Matthew Graham, the writer/co-creator, did write about how he'd bring back B7 in his DWM interview last year - I can't remember the details offhand, but I remember it was a bit controversial, albeit not to be taken entirely seriously!