Bloody marvellous, Life On Mars. It's the new flagship BBC1 drama, Monday nights at 9pm, starring John Simm as DI Sam Tyler. Tyler is hit by a car in the opening scenes of the first episode and somehow thrown back from 2006 to 1973, something that has yet to be explained, but may well involve his being in a coma back in 2006.

I wasn't around in the 1970s to know what they were like, but the 70s on display in Life On Mars is believable enough to me. But forget that, it's just great to see a decent new cop show on telly - this is like a British Starsky & Hutch, right down to the natty cars and cardboard boxes all over the shop. Thrown in the good-cop-bad-cop leading actors leaping into action, hurdling a table like they're The Sweeney and fighting each other as often as they fight the bad guys, and you're really cooking with gas. Top it off with the time travel from Dr Who and the odd surreal he's-actually-in-a-coma moment, bring to the boil, and it's the best show I've seen on telly for ages.

If only the law operated for me, as a 21st century trainee journalist, like it does for most of the coppers you'll see in Life On Mars, where the emphasis is very much on smacking the bastards round the chops first, maybe asking questions later if they can't plant any evidence on anyone. No one gets defamed, no one claims an infringement of privacy, search warrants are anathema and the Human Rights Act an exceptionally distant dream for the poor blighters brought in for 'questioning'.