...LIFE ON MARS, 9pm TONIGHT, THE LAST EVER EPISODE...

[Mike Carroll]

Been saving this one since last week:

Frank Morgan - Sam's old boss from Hyde - is also the name of the actor who played the wizard in the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz. Somehow I don't think that's a coincidence.

-- Mike

[Byron Virgo]

Morgan also appears in a few subliminal frames in a few episodes earlier in the series too.

Plus, 'Sam Williams', which is supposedly Tyler's real name, was the original name of the character before it was changed in pre-production.

Christ, we're sad bastards, aren't we?

[Mike Carroll]

Yes, I am.

I mean, yes, we are.

And "Sam Tyler" is an anagram of "Mars Lyte", a popular low-fat version of the standard Mars Bar that was available in the Manchester area in the early 1970s. Probably.

Plus, if you turn the "t" in "Mars Lyte" upside-down, you get "Mars Lyfe" - surely no coincidence there!

-- Mike

[davidbishop]

Loved the Hawaiian version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, but still can't believe that was Tom Waits  during the tender love scene in Sam's flat...

[Matt Timson]

By George, I think Byron has it- false waking dream like thingy.  He makes his choice and stays where he is- still in a coma in 2006 and living out a fantasy life in 1973.

Although to be honest, I never doubted that one way or another, he'd end up staying in 1973 after Maya dumped him.

[Quirkafleeg]

>Surprised no one's yet posited the idea that Sam's return to 2006 was actually just another level of his coma rather than actual reality

Yeah, I've been thinking that myself... the clue being he cuts himself and he can't feel it - though that could be just the modern policing and modern Britain itself is deadening compared to the 70s.

And the reference to Wizard of Oz with the Rainbow song (though I was distracted by thinking... 'oh that's that music they used when that bloke died in ER')

The retuning of the radio and esp the turning off the TV at the end (and the short clip of the testcard/static at the beginning - that was new right?) could mean he slipped so deep in the coma that he is forever out of touch from the 'real world' and us.

Oh and Nancy Banks-Smith thinks he was dead all along, I think.

Though Ashes to Ashes will probably screw up everything...

[WoD]

I nearly cried...

[pauljholden]

http://viciousimagery.blogspot.com/'>Dave Bishop's blog has turned up this http://blogs.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ianwylie/2007/04/life_on_mars_the_answers.html'>great interview with the creator, where in he says:

SPOILERS (well, ok the entire thread is a spoiler really, but this is definitive and some people may not want that...)

â??I think it does,â? agrees Matthew. â??The truth is, when I wrote it, what I was trying to say is thatâ??s heâ??s died, and that for however long that last second of life is going to be, it will stretch out for an age, as an eternity for him. And so when he drives off in that car, heâ??s really driving off into the afterlife.â?

-pj

[Matt Timson]

Now I'm really depressed...

[Bolt-01]

That is how I explained it to Dan last night. In a similar device used by Mister Cream in Miracleman where he relates the trime leading up to his death.

"I have only a second, but it is a long one and will suffice" (From memory)

Bolt-01

[Dark Jimbo]

Bit I liked best was Morgan's mid-episode double-twist blindside, which I completely went for. I actually wish this had turned out to be the true answer to Sam's plight, as I think it actually made more sense of most of the series elements than the 'coma' thing;

The way Sam just 'turned up' in A division that first day, the transfer thing, his obsession with Hyde, his endless clashing with Hunt and the others, his lack of roots or personal stuff, all much better explained by the 'undercover' theory. Plus I like the idea that we in 2007 don't really exist - there's just 1973, and that's your lot.

[Quirkafleeg]

I still think he's trapped in a VR prison...

[opaque]

Well a VR prison would explain why he knows so many details about both eras, after all someone from 1973 couldn't imagine laptops. mobiles, new buildings etc but someone from now could imagine 1973 ;)

I liked it. Only seen a few episodes (got S1 on dvd still to watch) but I had to see the last one.
The double twist was great but I go with the whole coma thing. After all, who gets to drive into the sunset?

'The sun never sets on those who ride into it'

[The Adventurer]

Just got done watching... gotta say my interpretation is that when the test card girl turns the TV off at the end it mark's Sam's death from jumping off the roof in really real 2007.


Personally I would have preferred my original theory were Sam was both back in time in 1973 and in a coma in 2007. In fact when Morgan was talking about how young 12 year old Sam had gone into a "waking coma" after his parents had been killed I thought it was going to loop around make that possible. Where this Sam Williams guy, upon being hit by a car in 1973 swaps minds with Sam Tyler in 2007, with the Accident at 12 years old being the event that linked them together in the first place. So Williams is the one in the coma and Tyler is the man running around 1973.

But that didn't happen, but I think I'm satisfied with how it ended, though I think they brushed Morgan under the rug and the team forgave Sam a bit quick at the end.

[opaque]

But that, along with no criminal prosecutions for Hunt or the others for what they did, as well as their seemingly quick recovery/release from hospital shows that it can't be real.

They got shot differently, some with worse injuries than others but soon afterwards they're all in the pub?