The Telly Archive: Exploring Life on Mars – New TV Column
Source: www.anglotopia.net - Monday, August 27, 2012
One of the things Anglophiles usually like to do is watch British television. Since BBC America seems to have gone in an odd direction lately (Not that there’s anything wrong with Star Trek The Next Generation or Battlestar Gallactica…but really??), I’ve focused on getting my fix through PBS and Netflix. I’ve spent years mining the latter for British shows and I’ve found quite a few gems – both well-known and obscure. This column will share the gems I’ve found – and also the ones I found … um … less engaging. I hope you enjoy it! Marshall Lancaster as Chris, Philip Glenister as Gene Hunt, John Simm as Sam Tyler, Dean Andrews as Ray, and Liz White as Annie. I’ve not seen the American version of Life on Mars so I can’t make a comparison but the British version is great! John Simm stars as Sam Tyler, a policeman from Hyde who gets hit by a car and wakes up in 1973 Manchester. What could have been a silly premise (“Look at all the bell-bottoms!”) is saved by outstanding acting and great writing that’s taut and filled with twists. Sam suffers from some serious culture shock, especially from his new boss, Gene Hunt (played with great relish by Philip Glenister), a bombastic, opinionated tough guy who’s more concerned with keeping order than a trifling thing like due process. Hunt is chauvinistic, occasionally brutal, homophobic, a bit of a bigot, smokes like a chimney, keeps a flask of whiskey in his pocket … and those are his good quaHurricane Isaac makes landfall in La.
