Even though Life on Mars has been around for 2 years I have only recently come across it, it being an English TV show and me living in Australia might have something to do with that. I have to say it is one of the best TV shows I have seen in a long time. A lot of it comes from all the unPC stuff that DCI Gene Hunt gets away. However the show makes interesting and unusual use of TV from the 70s, be it as the Doctors in 2006 communicating through the Open University programs on TV or the Test Card girl leaving her post and stalking time traveler/mental case Sam Tyler as Death personified.
It’s major appeal, I think, is that even when the show is serious it still knows how to be fun. I’m only up to the fifth episode of the second season, but I loved the Camberwick Green knock off. Check out the nonce waving to the camera as he is getting kicked in my Gene Hunt.
- Gene Hunt: I think you’ve forgotten who you’re talking to.
- Sam Tyler: An overweight, over-the-hill, nicotine-stained, borderline-alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding?
- Gene Hunt: You make that sound like a bad thing.
Update : I have had to relink to another youtube version of the video as the BBC are pursuing the copyright. Don’t be surprised if it also gets suppressed.