ABC's Life On Mars, Starring Jason O'Mara
With Harvey Keitel, Michael Imperioli and Gretchen Mol
Oct 10, 2008
Life On Mars' main character, Sam Tyler (Jason O'Mara) is a cop in New York, 2008. Nothing too unusual about that so far. But in the first episode, Sam gets hit by a car while chasing a criminal...and finds himself catapulted to New York, 1973. He has no idea what is happening to him, but when he looks up from the vacant lot where he finds himself, he sees the Twin Towers standing in front of him - a shocking clue that he is no longer in his own time.
Sam quickly discovers that he's a cop in the past as well, newly-transferred to the 1-2-5, his very own precinct in the East Village. His astonishment as he enters the building is palpable - the rotary phones, the typewriters, the Afros, the smoke in the air, the picture of Tricky Dick on the wall - and where the heck is his team, his office, his desk?
Time Travel, or Trauma?
As Tyler begins to lose his composure, his new boss, Lieutenant Gene Hunt (Harvey Keitel, an instantly credible force of nature) bursts out of his office, grabs Tyler, and proceeds to calm him down by punching him in the stomach. Clearly, management styles have changed a bit in 35 years.
A chastened Sam, clutching his solar plexus, is then introduced to the rest of his new team. First, there's Detective Ray Carling (Michael Imperioli), the boss' favorite, looking like Al Pacino in Serpico and exuding cynicism like cheap cologne; then there's the rookie, Chris Skelton (Jonathan Murphy), who's still wet behind the ears and looking for a role model. And finally, there's beautiful Annie "No Nuts" Norris (Gretchen Mol), who is braving the massive sexism of the Department as a member of the Police Women's Bureau, relegated mostly to fetching coffee and getting cats out of trees. Her nickname speaks for itself. Her degree in psychiatry, however, piques her interest in Sam, as his confusion and disorientation are obvious signs of a troubled mind.
Or are they? Just like Tyler, the viewer is not sure what's going on in Life On Mars. Sam receives tantalizingly vague messages from his own time through his television and car radio while struggling to make sense of his exile to the past. He may be in a coma in the hospital and having an out-of-body experience. He may be there to solve the case of his girlfriend, Maya (Lisa Bonet), who was kidnapped by a serial killer just before his accident; or he may be there for other reasons. Who knows? As he said at the end of the premiere episode, "For whatever reason, I'm still here."
Mysterious and Cool
And viewers should be glad. This show has everything - an enormously appealing main character (O'Mara is stunningly raw as he veers from emotion to emotion), a heavyweight supporting cast that explodes off the screen, an amazing soundtrack, great production values, and a creative concept that adds interest to what has become a television cliché. This is one British import that should be here for a long, long time.
