Living in the Seventies
Life on Mars (Fridays 10.30pm, Channel Seven), is an American remake of a British television show about a cop, Sam Tyler, who is trying to save his girlfriend, Maya (Lisa Bonet), when he gets hit by a car and wakes up in 1973. When Sam looks up to see the Twin Towers still standing, it convinces him, and the viewer, that we’re in a different time. The series follows Sam as he tries to work out the reason he is back in 1973, so that he can return home and save Maya.
Crime scenes are disturbed and DNA evidence doesn’t exist, but it’s a welcome relief from the CSI franchise and their scientific gobbledygook. The non-PC element of the show is enjoyable as the criminals are taken in but not before a little street justice is meted out by the cops and their platform shoes. Although overly sentimental at times, Life on Mars may be worth sticking with until they depart from the original in later episodes, like the American remake of The Office.
Sam Tyler is played with square jawed intensity by Irish actor Jason O’Mara, who does a little too much watery-eyed acting in the first episode, but this should taper off as the series progresses. Harvey Keitel, the powerhouse actor who ruled the gritty seventies in Scorsese movies such as Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, is Sam’s boss, Lieutenant Gene Hunt, who operates by his own rules and an iron fist (literally). Michael Imperioli (Christopher from The Sopranos), who looks like he was born to wear a handlebar moustache, is period perfect as fellow detective who resents Sam taking the detective position above him. Gretchen Mol plays female cop ‘No Nuts’ Annie Norris, who battles the seventies sexism and finds herself attracted to the strange twenty-first century SNAG, Sam.
A highlight of the show is the groovy soundtrack of seventies music, with artists like David Bowie (the title song), The Rolling Stones and The Who. Although set in the seventies, Life On Mars is not benefited by the twenty-first century fast cutting and odd angled shots. Maybe it is the prevalence of short actors of the modern era, but there are too many low shots of the lead actors to convey their giant heroic stature, which results in a ‘check out what’s up his nostrils’ angle. To really capture the era, the show could benefit from some Streets of San Francisco funky incidental music with lots of brass or a deep voice-over saying ‘Act I’, ‘Epilogue’ or ‘A Quinn Martin Production’, and I’m back to the seventies too.
The Australian remake won’t be too far away either, with Sam Tyler played by Matthew Newton wearing his best Bogart pants with a sewn seam and pockets on the legs, ending up on The Don Lane Show and trying to stop his Dad from doing bad Kamahl impersonations. The Aussie soundtrack will feature ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ by Carl Douglas, ‘Disco Duck’ by Rick Dees, ‘The Streak’ by Ray Stevens, or, heaven forbid, anything by Helen Reddy.
This piece originally appeared in ‘The Big Issue’.
Matt Quartermaine is a Melbourne-based writer and comedian. With Matt Parkinson, Tim Smith and Andrew Goodone, he produces ‘The Chat’, a weekly podcast in which four grown men in comfortable chairs spill their guts. Click here to download it for free at iTunes.
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