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'High concept' dramas - developed from a simple, striking and sometimes
fantastical premise - were a 2000s success story as British television began to
notice a dramatic rise in quality on American television. Life on Mars, though,
was perhaps the decade's most unlikely hit, not just because its heart is in the
1970s, but because its obsession with nostalgia belonged more to the 1990s, when
it was first devised.
The series was created during an all-expenses paid weekend in Blackpool,
where a brief to come up with pitches for new drama series resulted in a
time-travelling police drama, borne out of the writers' fondness for the
politically incorrect action series of the 70s, notably The Sweeney (ITV,
1974-78). Channel Four and the BBC turned it down, but eventually BBC Wales,
already committed to one time-travel drama in Doctor Who (BBC, 2005-),
gave it the green light.
The story of enlightened 2000s copper Sam Tyler, who wakes from a car
accident to find himself in 1973 and in a police station with a very different
working practice, recalls, perhaps by coincidence, an earlier drama charting a
similar journey in reverse. In The Black and Blue Lamp (BBC, tx. 7/9/1988), the
killer of PC George Dixon in The Blue Lamp (d. Basil Dearden, 1950) is
transported into a fictional 80s cop show, The Filth, and finds the culture
shock as frightening as does Tyler on first encountering his 1973 opposite
number, swaggering bully-boy Gene Hunt.
However, after a first episode that hinted at something beyond mere nostalgia
for the 70s, with a sense of danger and nausea at the untamed thuggery of the
era's police force, the series largely settled down into outrageous escapism,
with macho anti-hero Hunt, given glorious life by Philip Glenister, becoming an icon to thirtysomething males everywhere.
While it may have squandered some of its potential, Life on Mars was lively
and compelling, with a galaxy of memorable moments greatly aided by a
sympathetic central performance from John Simm and an eclectic 70s rock
playlist. The last episode was perhaps bound to disappoint, since it was common
knowledge the writers had initially had no real explanation for Sam's
predicament. But while Life on Mars arguably underestimated both the horrors of
the 70s and the depth of the era's cop shows, it was nevertheless a resounding
demonstration of TV's ability to lovingly recreate period, and to breathe new
life into overfamiliar genres.
Simon Farquhar
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