Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Telly addicts

Related: Film discussion forum.

Original poster

LIfe on Mars ******************SPOILERS/THEORIES**************

379 replies

MrsWho · 04/04/2007 21:43

Hopefully if I fill the first line or two with crap it won't show up any spoilers?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
NOt my theory read iton OG but very interesting one

As we've realised, Frank Morgan played the Wizard of Oz in the 1939 film. Gene has nicknamed Sam 'Dorothy' before now... And someone else has already mentioned that Ray needs a heart, Chris needs a brain, Annie needs courage and Sam needs to get home.

OP posts:
Bobsdad · 11/04/2007 00:08

Useful link to the MEN though

That's the Manchester Evening News, by the way, in case there are any overexciteable southern ladies on here ;)

Original poster
MrsWho · 11/04/2007 00:14

just seen that!
(its ok I'm not southern or overexcitable either )

OP posts:
UnquietDad · 11/04/2007 00:38

Look, it's all starting...

"sexy sidekick", eh?

Original poster
MrsWho · 11/04/2007 00:46

Did you get lost on OGs Life on Mars thread UQD?

Oh they can't do the same thing agin though

OP posts:
lemonaid · 11/04/2007 07:46

It won't be as good, but I can probably spend an enjoyable series saying to DH "It's not as good, you know."

hewlettsdaughter · 11/04/2007 08:45

More from the Manchester Evening News here

(thanks for first link, Bobsdad!)

EnormousChangesAtTheLastMinute · 11/04/2007 08:55

Gene Hunt has to be the star of any spin off because in the end, the john simm character proved himself to be the morally corrupt one. he was worse than gene. john simm let the woman he loved down - 'all' gene did was break the rules to get a 'good result' ie his motives where good, so morally he was ok.

hewlettsdaughter · 11/04/2007 08:56

why did he let her down ECATLM? He went back to her didn't he?

DeviousDaffodil · 11/04/2007 09:01

I don't think Sam ever came out of the coma in 2006.
All that went on was in 1973 was in his head. It would be a mixture of the cop shows he watched on TV/ The wizard of Oz/ snippets of his RL all interwoven.
He could hear the surgeon and did come back to the light hence the tunnel sequence.
He never cam e out of teh coma in 2206 hence he felt nothing and was easily able to go back to where he left off in 1973.
OR he was alive in two dimensions - more Dr Who-esque

EnormousChangesAtTheLastMinute · 11/04/2007 09:08

when he was in the tunnel he had to decide between annie and 2007. he chose 2007 (or 2006) and went back. this was morally the wrong decision and A Bad Thing to do. you can't ever let the woman you love down and get away with it (not in a bbc1 prime time drama anyway) so when he got back to the present day he was miserable. he redeemed himself by going back for annie - but he had to die to do it.

gene hunt would never have left his squad in that tunnel, no matter what the incentive. what john simm did was much worse than anything gene hunt ever did, demonstrating that john simm was the morally corrupt one, not gene hunt.

mrsgenehunt · 11/04/2007 09:17

The main thing is it didnt show gene hunt in a bad light, at the beginning of the episode it suddenly looked like it was going to, I didnt really see last weeks' properly, but at the end, all coppers were like that in 1973....results regardless. we know that.

florenceuk · 11/04/2007 09:39

Enormousetcetc, I think you have put your finger on why I found the ending a bit out of character. Remember Sam Tyler letting his dad go at the end of series 1, even though he thinks it might be the key to getting back home? he wouldn't have left them in the tunnel, esp if he thought there was a chance he was mad and was really Sam Williams in 1973. And the previous ep established that he trusted Gene Hunt and vice versa - ergo he wouldn't have wanted to betray him.

southeastastra · 11/04/2007 09:45

still think the ending was a cop out. it would have been better if he'd woken up in 1983 or whatever where they could begin another series. or if it had ended with him jumping off the building.

whywhywhy · 11/04/2007 09:49

god I miss this show already!

agree it would have been a better, more poetic ending if he'd just jumped off the building and left it at that. But then we would all have been complaining about lack of closure too.

Did anyone else think the image of the kids running down the street at the end was a kind of nod to the average-age viewer of LOM- like saying 'this is your childhood- it was better than 2007 wasn't it' (or maybe that's just my overnostalgic impression!)

fizzbuzz · 11/04/2007 09:53

Is it really over........forever...? No new series of it?

beansprout · 11/04/2007 09:53

I would have understood if it had ended with him jumping off the building, as it is, I'm confused.

Have gone back on my previous (b) theory as there are just too many 2006 references. Some don't prove he was from 2006 e.g. calling himself Tony Blair. While we, as viewers, take that to be a knowing reference, it could be explained as a coincidence if you were arguing for the 1973 as reality case. That said, other references like Robocop and mobile phones, put him, quite clearly in 2006.

I now think he was in the coma all along. Having found the rumour to be benign, he knew he could co-exist with Gene Hunt (hence being back in the team at the end) but that the radio saying they had lost him meant that he died. Hence the test card girl turning off the television at the end.

Am still a bit confused though. I really wanted the graveyard scene to be the explanation.

At school we were told to never write "I woke up and it was all a dream" stories and yet the BBC seem to have produced a major television series based on a variation on that premise. I want it to be a bit better than that.

beansprout · 11/04/2007 09:54

Sorry, didn't give due credit to Lemonaid there - I meant my belief in theory b, it was most definitely Lemonaid's theory!!

southeastastra · 11/04/2007 09:56

and if it was easy for sam to escape the gunmen in the train why didn't the others just follow him?

too many questions.

EnormousChangesAtTheLastMinute · 11/04/2007 09:56

well, yes, the prog is about a 21st century loss of confidence in the face of a new type of terrorism - it's asking 'did we throw the baby out with the bathwater?' when we went down the multi cultural, equality road? ie was the 70s better - and would we be in the mess we are today if gene hunt was still running the show? the ending seemed to suggest the programme makers thought the 70s were preferable to today. hence multi ethnic, reasonable and senstive debate john simm experienced in the modern day is portrayed as dull dull dull...something has been lost.
not sure i agree with them!

Bobsdad · 11/04/2007 09:58

The big problem with any '1973 was all a dream' solution is that we now know Gene Hunt is going to appear in someone else's comatose subconscious, this time in the 1980s. So what does that make him? Some kind of Mancunian Freddie Krueger?

Or is he somehow the anchor point between two points in history ... all very sci fi, that, I know, but hey. Life On Mars has been touted as sci fi from the outset.

Molesworth · 11/04/2007 10:00

SEA I agree, the train bit was really unconvincing

Also agree that the message that the 70s was better than now is a bit of a dodgy idea

EnormousChangesAtTheLastMinute · 11/04/2007 10:00

i wouldn't get too hung up on the graveyard scene and wanting everything to fit. the plotting has always been a bit dodgy - if you watch other eps i think you'll spot things that don't quite fit and they gave themselves an awful big job to do in the last episode - after all, they had to make room for three endings, something had to give (such a pity they didn't plump for an ending in the tunnel, they'd have had lots of extra time to improve the plotting...but that would have been a cop out on the 'which is best, now or then' debate which the whole show is hung on)

Pixel · 11/04/2007 10:01

What if the entire thing since the car accident at the beginning was the dream? The radio at the end saying he'd arrested could have been paramedics at the scene. I just wondered because dh pointed out in a sciency way that sometimes you can have what feels like a really long involved dream but in reality it only lasts a couple of seconds. Sam could have been lying unconscious under that underpass for ages before anyone found him, plenty of time to dream a couple of series!

EnormousChangesAtTheLastMinute · 11/04/2007 10:03

they had to really skirt lots of issues in order to pretend the 70s were good. racism never really tackled, sexism was all v harmless and, most of all from john simms point of view, the food must have been crap to someone who'd be no stranger to sushi and decent coffee. mellow birds anyone?! he'd have been back to 2007 in a shot on culinary grounds alone!

UnquietDad · 11/04/2007 10:05

I wonder how long it took them to resist doing as the new series:

"Me name's DCI Gene Hunt. Some nonce whacked me on the head and I woke up in two thousand and bloody eight. I must be mad, or dreaming, or time-travelling, 'cos the place is full of nancy-boys, arsey birds and daft tossers with computers. These 21st-century woofters may not like my methods, but they'll soon see I get results - while I try and work out how the hell I'm gonna get out of here."

Problem is, he'd face an internal inquiry every episode - or they'd have to find contrived plot reasons why he wouldn't!