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...i thought the last episode and its revelations deserved its own thread...

...lets hope its not... 'more fake than a trannys fanny!!!'...

Honestly, the number of threads you start on TV programmes ArrisArris...

it's like you've got more fingers in pies than a leper in a pasty factory

don't mention magnets pleeeese

Yes! That was GREAT!

Loved the ending... It was a hard one to get right, but they managed it. Best BBC show ever!

-- Mike C

WTF

Errr... that was a bit post-modern

("I am the law!")

A great final episode, ending the whole thing with aplomb rather than something silly (Sam Tyler - Time Cop!), although it *was* a bit strange.

Did the bit with Sam on the roof of the police station in "2007" remind anyone else of the end of Open Your Eyes?

Stunning, simply stunning.  

*That's* how you make a TV show.

Not sure how to approach that ending. I think it worked well as it twisted at least 3 times and it certainly entertained but..

Morally dubious?

Well, that was superb. They really kept us guessing right till the end.

Thought they might have ended it with the Shot of Sam staring at us from the roof, but I'm glad they ended it as they did.

"I am the law", indeed!

Bolt-01

My name is Dr X. I watched Life on Mars tonight and when it ended I had no flaming idea what had happened. Was 1973 real? Was he in a coma? One thing is for certain, if someone could explain the ending to me I'd certainly feel a lot less frustrated.

I have a theory about life on mars and the last episode really confirmed it for me. Essentially, the entire series is a meta commentary on tv; the last episode is a meta-meta-commentary on the commissioning and writing of the thing.

Here's how I see the show: Sam Tyler was trapped, not in his idea of the 70s, but, rather, a 70s tv cop show that his psyche carefully crafted for him (which he lived through but we were watching as an 80s style Glen A. Larson production type thing)

I imagine the writers sat down in the pub, got pissed and had a conversation along the (drunken) lines of:

'Wouldn't it have been brilliant to have been writing for the sweeny in the 70s?'
'Ah, I'd love to have done that - just a bunch of hard as nails coppers battering done doors and being all un-pc'
'Tell you what... why don't we pitch that tomorrow...'
'That's effing brilliant - you're my best mate'
'I love you'

The next morning

'Right lads, I believe you have an idea for me...'
'Yeah. It's the Sweeny'
'The Sweeny? that's a great idea - the modern Sweeny, the flying squad, a police procedural like CSI but british'
'Uhm... no, er... the actual sweeny...'
'No, I don't follow you... the ACTUAL Sweeny?'
'Yeah... uhm... just like it was the 70s.... er...'
'Uhm... yeah... but ... uhm... we... ah... I KNOW I KNOW... we have someone sent back in time to the 70s - a modern copper... yeah, that's it.. is he back in time or in a coma... who knows...'
'Brilliant. I'll have two series please'

The first script meeting...
'So, coma or back in time?'
'How the hell should I know... who cares... it's the sweeny... no, is there one or two Ns in Ponce?'

The end.

The last episode is just how I imagine the writers feel, a kind of 'Well, I suppose we'd better deal with this coma/time travel thing ... ok, there's that resolved ... but wasn't it so much more fun just writing it as the sweeny in the 70s?'

-------

It was a fecking great piece of telly (sometimes a little off, but worth watching and I'm glad I made the time to watch it when it was on)

- pj

Sam was in the coma as he knew all the future stuff.
And yes Gene Hunt is the LAW.

If the 70s was all a dream, how come he knew what the surgeon looked like...?

More to the point, how did he change time and save Maya?

Rubbish.

I liked it a lot- but it was still rubbish.  I was sure that the lady copper who wanted to listen to his tape was going to be Cartwright as an old woman... ah well...

Ah come on Gary, that's piss easy to rationalise away ... maybe he flicked his eyes open briefly and saw the surgeon (which, happily, explains why he doesn't see Frank until well into the second series) - who knows in the coma time may be travelling much faster for him than in real life - allowing him to include all sorts of outside stimula into his entire dreamscape.

The question is: how did he know he'd slip into a coma by jumping off a roof - why didn't he just die?

Who cares... it's not about that ... it's about the Gene Genie...

- pj

ARGHHHH !

magic, and if it was all the 70's how come he knew modern stuff like stingers and PC, but then if it was... oh hell i gave up trying to work it out, it was magic.

i have a brain ache now.

I find myself in Dr X's canoe. I think I understand but it doesn't make sense.

The thing that's been colouring my whole idea of what' going on is that Gene must be real for the proposed follow-up to work...

Oh, the roof thing is a reference to the episode in the first series where Cartwright's boyfriend tells him that's how he can wake himself up.

As I see it - he was in a coma.
Woke up.  Realised 2006 is a bit drab compared to the madness of Gene and co.  Decides to jump off roof to die in the now and live his afterlife in the then.
Loved the "He's slipping away."
"God I hate that station."

"More to the point, how did he change time and save Maya?"

Maybe that was as much a hallucination as seeing his own grave?

Or maybe there was some real trouble with a psycho in the ward and his comatose senses rationalised it as himself saving the day because that was better than being utterly helpless?

Enjoyable as the episode was, my flatmate and I seem to be alone in yelling 'what the hell?' at the TV following the last ten minutes. I don't know why, but I was still disappointed in the ending.

Any answers they'd have given would have been beside the point, and diminished the whole hing... thought it was quite bold of them to pin their colours to the Gene Hunt mast so fully

Tat said, surely there are more effective ways to put yourself abck in a coma than that?

I had to MAKE myself like the ending (never a good thing - like when you buy a record and force yourself to like it 'cos you've just paid £15 for it).

The twist with Morgan saying he was really undercover with amnesia didn't work at all. Mainly because he'd quoted ROBOCOP about five minutes earlier. And had made lots of future refs (not just police procedural ones) in other episodes. So we knew that was rubbish.

I like to think he was really back in time - the tumor was some kind of thing (next stage of evolution) that allowed him to travel in time. The accident activated it and sent him back the first time. His choice to leap off the roof sent him back the second time.  

Sadly, that's all about as rational and logical  as "the power of words" or "time travel DNA" or "the heart of the Tardis".

Also, the second he talked with Nelson, you could tell exactly how the series was going to end and how he was really "a man out of time".

And Ray's "Poof" after the Hamlet line was brilliant.

Is JUST JUGS a real magazine?

But I did like the lovely pause as he leapt off the roof - just long enough for you to think the titles were going to come up.

And there were three cracking scenes with Annie - particular loved how she stayed in character despite me (and I imagine most of the male hetero population of the country) wanting to see her kit off.

My lovely wife (sorry, 'er indoors) didn't like the ending. She thought they'd just made up the first thing they could think of.  I sort of agreed with her and then thought "Your a burd, get yer fancy knickers off and get my dinner on the table".

Yeah - any explanation would have been in danger of veering into heart of TARDIS territory... best to leave it unexplained, as any "answer" is gonna be picked to shreds

Dissapointed in the ending and it's left open for a continuation. (even though they say it's the last, money talks).

Why was the modern so drab to him?

He'd just spent 2 series trying to get back to his friends and family and when he does, he just want's to get back to living in the sweeney.

Didn't make sense to me.

I enjoyed it but just left me unimpressed.

::  why didn't he just die?

Who's to say he didn't? All we heard was a voice saying that Sam was "slipping away". He could easily have been dying when he turned the radio to another station.

Well... not what I expected.

Better to go with that, and perhaps be unsure of how you feel about it than go for something with more of a short lived sugar high.

Yeah, not what I was expecting either, hence the 'WTF'.

Not sure I liked it.. all.

++ Did the bit with Sam on the roof of the police station in "2007" remind anyone else of the end of Open Your Eyes? ++

If you've not read Brubaker and Philips 'Sleeper' and want to, stop reading now-

Both seem to finish in a similar manner.

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, what with the odd looks from Morgan and the dream-like editing (the bit when he turns from the window after recording the tape, and then he's in his mum's house).

Or, what about the concept that the reason that Sam knows all this stuff about the present day is because we, the viewers, are also part of his delusion - hence we are 'switched off' by the Test Card girl at the end.

'Course, that's all just bollocks. Doesn't really matter - the thing about an open ending is that it's up to you, the person watching the show, to interpret it in whatever way you see fit. Some people'll like that, and some'll want something a bit more clear cut.

Roll on 'Ashes to Ashes', I say.









But anyone that cried at the end is a great... soft... sissy... girlie... nancy... French... bender... Man United supporting POOF!!

Link: Funk To Funky...

> But anyone that cried at the end is a great... soft... sissy... girlie... nancy... French... bender... Man United supporting POOF!!

Byron: I'm sorry, but I've tried to respect you these past few years, but this time you have gone too far.

Just because some people are in touch with their emotions and not afraid to express them does not give you grounds to insult them, however "humorous" the insult or light-hearted the comment.

There is absolutely no justification for calling anyone a Man United supporter. Please apologise immediately, you poof.

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

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?

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

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...

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.

>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...

I nearly cried...

Dave Bishop's blog has turned up this 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

Now I'm really depressed...

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

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.

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

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'

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.

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?

Exactlyâ??the point is that the 1970s are Sam's idealised view of the world, his Wonderland. With that in mind, the close of the series was his version of that world as he wanted it: exciting, vibrant, with the people he wanted around him and the comradeship he craved.

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

A female cop travels back in time from 2008 apparently...

Hmm. Okay.

I have my own ideas as to how the show ends, and they aen't the same as the writer's, but then it's not as if a writer always knows what's going on in their stories anyway.

So ultimately the Sam's situation ends up being the third option. Sam is completely Mad.

Heh, or all three.

More info on the new series here - apparently the 'sexy new female detective' is going to be the one that Sam was recording the tape for:

Link: â??Ray, fire up the Quattro!â??

I thought it was going to end up like 'The Black and Blue Lamp', this TV play from the eighties that no one but me remembers - two coppers, one from the forties and one from the eighties, 'swap over' lives somehow.

Enjoyed that, though - sufficiently ambigious ending to keep everyone happy.

>'The Black and Blue Lamp', this TV play from the eighties that no one but me remembers

No, I remember it, it was great... I seem to remember the modern CID called themselves Bastard Squad or something equally fantastic.

Heh, like the sound of that, and I really must watch 'Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown' again.

"I know my rights- I want a cup of tea and a sticky bun"

Was that the one?

Well, I'd recorded it and had to avoid spoilers 'Likely Lads' style yesterday.

I liked the ending, and I agree about Sam's waking from the coma was a false one.

The only thing that bothers me slightly is where it leaves the storylines where he was affecting future events by his actions in the past. If it was just a coma, then that would have meant Maya was likely still kidnapped or dead (maybe the scene of her leaving was Sam accepting that)

Good to see more Oz references, like the Rainbow after Sam returns, and the desaturation of the modern day. I was even thinking Ray and Chris looked a bit Cowardly Lion and Scarecrow respectively.

Not sure what that makes Gene though, a flying monkey?

- Steve

::  If it was just a coma, then that would have meant Maya
:: was likely still kidnapped or dead (maybe the scene of
:: her leaving was Sam accepting that)

Or she got rescued, but this was nothing at all to do with Sam.

True,

not sure where it leaves the 'Tony Crane' storyline though, I guess the delusional Sam just imagined that his actions had resulted in Crane being detained in a secure unit, and that the man who tried to strangle Sam in 2006 was not Crane.

As for the fake 2006 awakening, the Ashes to Ashes promo piece suggests that Sam did awake from his coma after all and committed suicide to return to 1973.

- Steve

"that would have meant Maya was likely still kidnapped or dead"

In the episode where he met Mays's mum, Maya came to visit Sam in hospital and said she was moving on.  So she was alive.

I would say that Sam helping to find the killer somehow changed events so that the '07 killer was either caught or never committed the crimes in the first place.

But if the crime was never committed, then Mia wasn't kidnapped, and Sam wouldn't have been out of his car being distraught when he was hit by the other car.

TIME PARADOX!

In that case he must have been caught in time.

Just watched it.

Fucking awesome.  I think that PJ is absolutely right in his explanation - proving that there is indeed a first time for everything.

If you truly understood the ending, you'd know that *no one* was right...and yet *everyone* was, grasshopper...

Having pondered for some time, and been initially quite unimpressed at the thought, I have to say I'm looking forward to the next series of Ashes to Ashes now, I wasn't really but I like the way they've linked the two and some of the changes for the next series.

I also watched Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown again, and that was good.  Shouting George of the Weeney, The Bullshitters, Jason Bentley and Spanker the moody 90's Geordie copper whoi is always looking out of the window.

'Once there were ships on the tyne... with big funnels...'

If anyone has enjoyed Life on Mars and hasn't seen any Sweeney for 20-30 years I can fully recommend it, it's uncut 100% proof guv-filled stuff.  I may have to start watching it again at some point.

There's a sampler disc of The Sweeney available at Asda for £3, by the way. There's also one of Robin of Sherwood, and On the Buses.

Ignorant US resident here, what exactly is The Sweeney?

I assume a 70s cop show?

Yeah, in terms of Gene Hunts character it's the defining influence. Two rough and tough coppers beat up nonces, shag birds, stop scrotes blags going off proper, and all in 50 minutes.

Sweeney - Sweeney Todd - Plod

And here's a decent blog with Simm and Grahams opinions on the ending

Link: Look at that blogger go!

Hmmm... looks like there's a TV box set of the first series of The Sweeney hitting the States in June. I may have to check it out.

Sweeney - Sweeney Todd - Plod

I always thought it was Sweeney Todd - Flying Squad.

You're probably right. It sounds about right to me.

Thinking about Ashes to Ashes; I don't really see the need to have any more time travelling, tbh. Having Gene Hunt transferred to the Met and coping with the changes in attitude and policing methods that were already starting in the early 80s, coupled with having a woman as a DCI would be strong enough for a series. Having Gene as the fish out of water in his own time instead of anyone going back from now would put a nice twist on things.

A mate of mine suggested that a series in which Hunt gets hit by a car and wakes up in 2007 might be fun. Short term I think he's right.

I always thought it was Sweeney Todd - Flying Squad.

Yer, it's yer actual cockerney rhyming slang for Flying Squad, not plod, which is a different type of thing all together (plod are named after the character from Noddy).

Course, septics (septic tank = yank) like the Adventurer tend to find rhyming slang completely incomprenensible, so beware...

Yeah, I've been pretty confused for a few posts now...

:(

Don't you chicken curry me old china, 'ave a butchers at this wind and kite on yer car and scooter for a Jimmy Shand with the old Chitty Chitty Bang Bang lingo, and all that pony:

Link: 'Ave a Banana!