So begins the saga of Alex Drake, a female police psychologist who was assigned a recently comatized London police detective. This man, after being hit by a car, woke up to find himself a detective in 1973. In a coma for months, that officer eventually woke up in the real world to discover that his apparent fantasy world was more real to him, so he committed suicide to return him there forever. He left detailed reports to Alex to figure him out.
As this series starts, Alex is pondering what Sam Tyler's psychosis is all about when she is taken hostage by a man who claims to know her, and shot. She wakes up as a police inspector in the year 1981, complete with heavy makeup, loud ties, and flock of seagulls hairdos. Surrounded by the same anachronistic team of cops that Sam found himself with, Alex is left to solve crimes with her modern know-how in the still mysogynist, still racist, still overly colourful world of London, 1981 - while struggling to wake up and return to her daughter in the present day.
I like it so far. This show is really a vehicle for Philip Glenister, who plays the dinosaur police chief inspector Gene Hunt. He hasn't changed in the past eight years, aside from the upgrade in wardrobe and transportation. Alex Drake provides a competent foil for Hunt, being a smart, tough woman who can keep up with his attitude and backwards ways. I look forward to seeing how this one plays out, since it's the same world that Sam Tyler was trapped in, but with in Alex Drake's mind this time.
Other notes on the opener:
-Sam Tyler, upon his suicide, returned to this world and lived here until 1980, where he was apparently killed driving his car into a river in pursuit of a robbery suspect. His body was never found though, so is he REALLY dead here?
-Alex is stalked by an evil clown much in the same way as the test card girl followed Sam around. She is also getting messages in her dreams and through the television. He daughter may also be in on it, as she shows up in several dream sequences.
-Zippy and George are from a long-running children's show called Rainbow. They are both voiced in that show and here by Roy Skelton, most famously known to genre fans as one of the most recognized voices of the Daleks.
-Alex is already convinced that she's in a coma but is still astounded by the realism and reactions of the people around her. So, we're left to ask just how much of a hallucination she's really in. The format of the show prevents a definitive answer, but what are the odds?
Mark
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Their vision of 1981 is, quite frankly, all screwy. There were no riverboats full of yuppies in June/July 1981. Or maybe there were, since there was one in The Long Good Friday (quite possibly my favourite film of all time), made in 1979. But they're not being subtle about the 80's imagery, in fact they've gone rather over the top. You see, while (as I said in the LoM thread) I remember 1973, I REMEMBER 1981.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
I didn't know it was a sequel to Life on Mars, and I never watched that show before. So they caught me off-guard! I suspect I might get hooked.
It's really odd, I must say. But it has an evil clown and loud British coppers called 'Guv'. Lovely!
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
Watched the second epp last night. I'm not convinced - Gene Hunt is on form, and Ray is becoming far more likeable.
I just don't like Alex - I just don't believe that an experienced police officer would bring their daughter to a crime scene with a gun weilding loony. She's also just a bit too much of a pompous twit, but I did like her sparing with specky-four-eyes brief in epp 2.
Thinking about it, I didn't like Sam Tyler that much to begin with either, so we'll have to see.