I'm giving a vote of 9 out of 10 to Life on Mars, even though I know BBC America must be butchering the episodes they are screening in the US. IMDb says the runtime is 58 minutes. After you take out the commercials and endless promos BBC America runs each hour (at least 8 or 9 minutes must be for that brain sucking waste of time, Footballers Wives), I'm guessing we in the US are viewing about 44 minutes out of the 58. So good is Life on Mars, however, I'm willing to put up with it--and hope for the full version DVDs later.
What makes this show tick? Perhaps it's the ever present dreamscape quality--made possible by the slight sepia tint seemingly applied on most setups, which combine with the bright incandescent interior lighting of the institutional quality police stations, bar rooms, and housing projects to give a greenish, otherworldly haze to many scenes.
Combine this with the fun look back into a time without computers, fax machines and those damnable cell phones and you have poor Sam Tyler facing off with an English version of Dirty Harry. Combustible. Not to mention that Sam's holier than thou attitude is beginning to lose out to the realists on the beat. All of it makes for a very interesting hour--or 44 minutes.
What makes this show tick? Perhaps it's the ever present dreamscape quality--made possible by the slight sepia tint seemingly applied on most setups, which combine with the bright incandescent interior lighting of the institutional quality police stations, bar rooms, and housing projects to give a greenish, otherworldly haze to many scenes.
Combine this with the fun look back into a time without computers, fax machines and those damnable cell phones and you have poor Sam Tyler facing off with an English version of Dirty Harry. Combustible. Not to mention that Sam's holier than thou attitude is beginning to lose out to the realists on the beat. All of it makes for a very interesting hour--or 44 minutes.