Grand Finale: Life On Mars. AKA bellends and bell-bottoms.
(SEASON 2, EPISODE 8)
THE LAST LINE of the Bowie chorus that inspired Life On Mars’ plot neatly sums up this cracking final episode: “Take a look at the lawman beating up the wrong guy/ Oh man, wonder if he’ll ever know/ He’s in the bestselling show.” DCI Sam Tyler (John Simm) did, eventually. And despite spending two seasons trying to get back to 2006 from 1973, once back, he threw himself off a building to return to his new home.
Trim as a whippet, with no loose ends, co-creator Matthew Graham’s finale gives us exactly what we want, and then upends it entirely. The visions and messages from 2007 that plagued Sam throughout the series step it up a gear (that creepy Test Card Girl is a nightmare for the ages), convincing him that his chief — the rule-breaking, scene-stealing ego in a large coat, DCI Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) — is the avatar of a brain tumour. Sam agrees to gather evidence on Hunt for DCI Morgan, whom he believes to be his surgeon’s 1970s counterpart, working on an operation in tandem with the one happening in his own time. But can he betray colleagues that, while figments of his imagination, feel so real?
Things become even more tangled when DCI Morgan tells Sam he’s an undercover cop with amnesia, and that his name and those of his parents are taken from gravestones. So many layers! As the sting goes wrong, Sam’s friends are trapped in a gunfight, with DCI Morgan leaving them to die. And when Sam returns to 2006, we should be punching the air — instead, it feels even more wrong than when he first landed in Gene Hunt’s office. Re-watching from an age of insistent and dangerous nostalgia — although possibly more 1950s teacakes and apron strings than Gene Hunt’s copy of Just Jugs magazine — it’s tempting to view Life On Mars as Sam’s rosy-eyed escapism from modern life. But the thing that pulls him back from his own time isn’t a desire to watch darts on tiny tellies, but a close-knit circle where he can fulfil his potential as a copper — and get the girl by finally choosing to stay and commit to a life there. His 1973 is bright, flashy and fun, whereas his present looks about as vibrant as an advert for PPI.
As he takes that leap off the building, it’s the perfect bookend to Annie stopping him from jumping in the first episode when he was trying to return to his own time. Sam’s decision isn’t an anthem to suicide — a darkness, and ultimate end – but a paean to finding where you are supposed to be, and the power of your own mind. Whether through music, books, games, or TV, imagination can create a world, and friendships, that allow us to escape. Although, not even that can save us from the finale of the American remake, which took the show’s title rather more literally and had everyone being astronauts on a mission to Mars. But then, they didn’t grow up with the Test Card Girl.
BOTH SEASONS OF LIFE ON MARS ARE AVAILABLE ON AMAZON PRIME AND ITUNES