Season 1 - 18 episodes (2008-09)
Watch the trailer
Created by: Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec, Scott Rosenberg
Based on: Life on Mars by Matthew Graham, Tony Jordan, Ashley Pharoah
Starring: Jason O'Mara, Michael Imperioli, Gretchen Mol, Havery Keitel, Lisa Bonet
Rated: TV-14
Plot
A present day car accident mysteriously sends a detective back to the 1970s.
Verdict
This pairs time travel and a detective show, withholding the answer to what's actually happening until the last episode. The show stretches credibility. At times it seems the show is Sam's dream as he's in a coma, other times he thinks solving crimes in the past can affect the future. There's a bleed between the past, his present, and what could be the future. Sam is clearly the good guy with his social and moral line. He believes in suspects rights and that women are equals. He's in the minority. With so many episodes this stretches the answers farther than they should be. You'd think someone displaced from time would be more frantic and desperate to return. Towards the end, he's not sure he wants to leave the 70s. The final episode is a nice conclusion that answers everything.
It depends.
Review
I don't know what it was about the late 2000s, and maybe Lost (2004) is the
catalyst, but this show along with Daybreak (2006) and Journeyman (2007) all
released within a year, lasted one season, and explored some form
of time travel.
The premise is wild. Police officer Sam Tyler (Jason O'Mara) is hit by a car while on a case. That transports him back to 1970. He already has the appropriate clothes and car. It has to be a coma or even a death dream. He's a New York cop, and despite all the oddities, it's the Twin Towers that force him to confront that something just isn't right. He goes to his police station, still not sure of what happened. Somehow he transported twenty five years earlier. The first episode makes it seem like a dream. We can hear EMT's trying to revive him. Even Sam hears it.
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| Jason O'Mara plays Sam Tyler |
Sam has to adjust to the cops in 1973 doing whatever they want. Warrants and rules don't matter. His modern day morals constantly clash with everyone around him, but he's able to use his future techniques to solve crime, aided by psychology. The closest thing he has to a partner is Annie Norris (Gretchen Mol). She's a woman in man's world and given no credibility aside from Sam.
Sam keeps running into people he'll eventually meet. I don't know how they don't think he's absolutely bonkers. His prophetic outlooks are dismissed as silly or deranged. I don't know where the line is. Either he's in a coma and everything he experiences is all made up or he really did time travel. We've heard people from the future talking to him like he's in a coma when that time period bleeds over. If that's the truth, it makes the 70s story lines pointless. He often pursues those cases like it could affect the future. Is this some kind of magical realism? Frequently he'll glimpse a vision or a reflection that's the future.
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| Gretchen Mol plays Annie Norris |
Towards the middle of the season he's met his mom and dad. His rules are less strict when it comes to his mom. His dad running out on him is a source of trauma, and it seems he may get to see what happened. Sam also gets involved with his boss's daughter. The show needs to fill the episode count with something. This started out as the clash of progressive, contemporary ideals with the past and now it's just a soap opera. There's also the alien abduction concept. Why is this all over the place?
He finds someone else claiming to be from the future, and there are also cryptic phone calls. By this point the show should have given some indication of what's happening. It seems the show is hedging its bets and keeping all options open.
Thankfully the final episode reveals everything. I'm not sure how this would have gone for another season. It's a sufficient ending. This show has too many problems to be worth watching, but at least they didn't botch the conclusion or end it on a cliff hanger.
SPOILERS
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