Life on Mars USA

Coming to ABC on October 9 at 10/9c is an American remake of the stellar BBC drama Life on Mars and I feel equal parts dread and optimism.  The British version stars John Simm as Sam Tyler, a modern day cop who is run down by a car and upon waking finds himself trapped in 1973.  Sam, along with his 70s boss Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) solves cases in the past while trying to find out how to return to the present.  “Am I mad, in a coma or back in time?” Sam asks in the opening credits of each episode.

The short run of BBC shows (just 16 total episodes in the case of LoM) allows for the development of neat and tidy little story arcs that do not get bogged down by network executives wishing to stretch out a successful TV program’s run.  Which brings me to concern number one.  The mystery central to LoM works great in the shortened BBC series format, but I wonder if it has the legs to carry an American show over 4-5 seasons.  Will we all get sick of hearing Sam’s weekly question about his mental state?  Certainly the writers will throw us for some loops, but I have my doubts on this issue.

Another worry is the horrible pilot episode that leaked to the internet and had a brief lifespan on ABC.com.  The episode was just a clone of the BBC pilot with one major exception: the running time.  The BBC receives funding from license fees rather than ad revenue which means an hour long program is exactly that, not 47 minutes.  The US pilot cut a full 13 minutes of story from the British version and, wow, did it ever show.  The characters were poorly realized, the story wrapped too quickly, the pacing was all wrong, and it just didn’t work.  Thankfully all of the characters have been recast (except for Jason O’Mara as Sam) because chemistry was definitely absent.  Colm Meaney, as much as I like him, just failed to convince me that he could knock Jason O’Mara’s block off with a right cross.

That being said, the new cast brings me hope for the Americanized version of Life on Mars.  Things started looking up with the addition of the underrated Gretchen Mol as Annie and Michael Imperioli as Ray, a role seemingly tailor made for him.  The end all, however, came with the announcement that Harvey Keitel would play Gene Hunt…yes, Harvey Keitel in his first ever recurring TV role.  He looks like a guy who could knock anyone’s lights out with a single punch.

The proof is in the pudding, so I’ll give the new version of Life on Mars a fair chance to win me over, but if it falters I can always rewatch the BBC original.