TVoholic.com: Full episode reviews of your favorite TV shows & news about television

Life On Mars: Tuesday’s Dead

By fred | November 14, 2008

(S01E06) I’ve been struggling to know if I liked this show or not, because while there’s an undeniable quality to it and it can be a lot of fun to watch, it remains a cop-procedural which is just something I don’t care for. I don’t know how long they intend to have this show running, but I think it shouldn’t be too long, and one or two seasons might be enough, because planning for more than that ensures that it will have to be really nothing but a cop-procedural.

But if it’s not meant to last forever, we can have episodes that one way or another are linked to Sam’s condition, just like this one was. I thought this was definitely a pretty great episode, but that’s only because while there was, obviously, a new case to work on for Sam, in 1973, it was – at least to me – entirely about his conditions, in 2008.

Sure, there was an hostage situation with one guy and a lot of explosives locked in an hospital ready to blow everything up, but that plot had quite a lot of holes in it, let’s face it. I mean, how the Hell could the dozens of cops there not be able to take him out, when he’s all alone and there’s such a large ground to cover ? Even in the seventies, hospitals had more than one door, more than one way on or out, and I’ll be damned if that guy was able to watch over everything.

Especially considering all the time he spent talking with people, not watching outside, or just walking out to get his bombs ready. Thinking about it, if they hadn’t said they would come in and just did it, and walk in, he might not have realized they were inside until it was too late for him to do anything about it. He wasn’t looking out all that often, and even if there were surveillance cameras, they were there, but he was never looking at the video.

But watching this episode, it seemed pretty obvious (though it might be a trick to get us all fooled…) that Sam, in 2008, is in a coma. He is, and his mother is considering pulling the plug. Sam could hear it, and his mind decided to came up with this crazy hostage situation as a way to deal with it, somehow. It wasn’t just an police operation, it was the way Sam’s mind tried to process things and send a sign to his beloved ones not to give up on him.

That why it was all about Sam and, indeed, he could appear to be quite a narcissist to the unaware eye. But that’s what worked for me, what made this whole thing interesting. Not how they were going to prevent the building from exploding or saving the hostage, that was just stuff on the side. The real meat was Sam’s mind working things out, Sam talking to someone on the phone who wasn’t real, seeing room that weren’t from that hospital, and I loved how he ended up on the Psychiatric ward and how there was all this talk about crazy people losing their minds, seeing things that aren’t there, thinking the radio or television are talking to them directly, all those things that Sam has been experiencing himself, here in 1973.

Embedding those themes in the story was really well done, and the best scene of all might have been when he was watching a soap opera on TV, and thought it was somehow talking to him, that it was what was happening to him, right now, in 2008 while he lays there on the bed, in a coma. Plus, having all the officially crazy people laugh at him talking to the TV was pretty hilarious – not to mention the contrast with Johnny, who was actually crying. Because Johnny was like Sam, he was still there, somewhere, inside, but trapped in a body and without control over it.

If they can make all cases Sam works on linked so closely to his condition and what’s happening to him, that will surely be a lot of fun! At least it will for me, because despite all the holes in the actual plot in 1973, this remains one Hell of an episode to me, one of – if not the – best ones actually, because if it was about some kind of hostage situation taking place in an hospital, it was most certainly not about one involving bombs, or taking place in the seventies.

On more general note, while I like the little “futuristic jokes” and all, they shouldn’t over do it either. After the rap not long ago, Sam was now doing the moonwalk, he keeps throwing around new slang (like being a “tool” or talking about “gaydar”, to which people – Annie – respond with a “I like that”), and it’s a little too much I feel. I like the more “subtle” ones, like when he asked a pregnant woman what she was having, or bringing up his years of experience in a program that just started this year.

Another really good episode, it’s a shame the show isn’t doing better in the ratings cause it’s actually pretty darn good. And moving after Lost next year might not do good, because as everyone knows, after an hour of Lost you either rewind and go at it again, go turn the TV off and go theorize…

What did you think of this episode ? Are you convinced Sam is actually in a coma in 2008, and this is only his mind trying to survive ? Or do you have another theory ?

Posted in Reviews
Shows: Life On Mars