As part of the FourStarters relaunch we decided to broaden what we blog about, so here is a post that really has to be put in a new category to make sense on our blog.

I consume a lot of media. Books, music, news, internet radio, audio and video podcasts, movies, and most importantly: television series. I know that at least Reinier shares this interest in TV series with me (just ask him about Firefly and he won’t shut up) so I decided to give a write-up of one of the series that has kept me busy the last few weeks.

Life on Mars

Life on Mars is a 16 episode (2 seasons) BBC drama about Sam Tyler (played by John Simm), a Detective Chief Inspector for the Manchester Metropolitan Police, who has an accident and wakes up in 1973. The big question is if he is in a coma and dreaming it, if he is dead, or if he travelled through time.

Back in 1973 he joins the force as a detective inspector and finds that he has trouble fitting in. His boss, Gene Hunt (played by Philip Glenister) is an alcoholic, racist, sexist, homophobe that never learned to do an investigation by the book. This makes stuff very interesting for the viewer with Sam and Gene often either punching each other or co-punching another. Not to mention the weird hair cuts and cloths to add to the effect of the viewer wondering wether Sam really ended up on Mars.

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