| Alright, I realise this is probably incendiary, but I've got issues with the ending of Life On Mars.
The series drew to a close with tonight's finale, in which Sam is exposed (to himself as much as anyone else) as an undercover cop trying to rid the force of the, shall we say, unorthodox methods of his superior Gene Hunt. Sam is transported back to the present day where he appears to wake from a coma, but then - disillusioned with 21st-century police methods and afraid he's abandoned the people he came to know during the series - he takes a running jump off the top of the building, and returns to 1973 to get the girl as the credits roll.
If you didn't see it, much of what follows, you might not. But if you did then let me know your thoughts.
1. Sam wouldn't jump.
I'm sorry, but given all we've seen of Sam Tyler in this series, he's not one for jumping off an office block - in other words, committing suicide. Even allowing for him having apparently been won over by Gene's style of policing versus the present day, that leap was a leap of faith too far for me to buy.
2. They've got their Gene back to front.
Think about this episode: the conclusion seems to be that it's okay for Gene Hunt to let innocent people die "because we like his style". In the first five minutes an entirely innocent man, who came to help the police, is murdered through Gene's gross negligence, and yet by the end Sam's portrayed as making the right choice in joining Gene, eschewing the way things are done these days.
I think that's an appalling conclusion to reach. I love watching Gene as a character but if he existed next to me in real life, I'd despise him and everything he stands for. People die because of his bravado, ignorance and stupidity, and he leads a life rooted in alcoholism and violence. A couple of times we've seen him go through some epiphany or other and acquire moral values when it really matters, but by the next episode they're gone again. The idea that letting innocent people die is preferable to clicking a pen around in a 21st-century police force is pretty sickening.
So where is he?
There's still no conclusive evidence as to what happened to dear old Sam. For my money, he's back in a coma in 2006. Amy J reckoned he was in 1973 all along and the 2006 bits were his imagination, but look at the cars: it's one hell of an imagination that's able to accurately guess how cars will look 30 years later, replicate the actual 2006 police car livery, and predict the format of UK car registration plates in the 21st-century (56/06 etc). Sam must have been in 2006 to start with.
So he's either back in a coma again, or he's travelling back and forth through time a la Doctor Who. And there is a crossover Christmas Special I'd like to see. |
Comments so far: 4
Right, don't say I didn't warn you, you utter heathen:
1. Sam *would* jump. Think back to the very first episode of the very first series when he was prepared to jump off the very same building to take "the definitive step" he needed to get back to where he belonged. The only thing that stopped him jumping was Annie, and the fact that she had grit in her hand from falling against the fire bucket on her way up to him. He reasoned that he couldn't have imagined that much detail in his fantasy world and so it must be real. It's interesting that he could 'feel' such an insignificant thing that early on in this story and yet didn't even noticed that he'd stabbed his own thumb when he 'woke up'. The only indication we have that Sam was 'alive' in 2006 was his outburst after Maya disappeard (but only after he'd asked her "What use are feelings?"). When he 'woke up', there was none; his mother didn't even seem that bothered when he was telling her some pretty outlandish things about where he'd been, no-one seemed too concerned that he'd spent bloody ages in a coma (and trust me, after that accident, there's no way he'd hop out of his hospital bed like that), and there was no mention of Maya. He didn't belong there; at least not the man he'd become over these two series. Like it or not, our Sam, by the end, became a 1970s copper. And a very good one. (COMPLETELY mad, but that's for another time.)
2.Yes, Gene is, to use Sam's own words, "an overweight, over the hill, tobacco-stained, borderline alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding," but so were many other people at that time, and Sam is changing him. They've come to rely on each other and trust each and complement each other perfectly. You forget that, when Sam first arrived, Gene was much worse as exemplified by his taking bribes from Steven Warren in series 1, episode 4. By the end of that episode, Sam and Gene together arrested Warren and put an end to the whole affair. Last episode, when Gene was accused of murder, it was the thought of him betraying this new-found approach to bribes that upset Sam the most when the investigation brought him to the discovery of Gene's taking 'brown envelopes' from the boxing gym. Gene is an outdated policeman, by our standards, but he is learning from Sam and I suspect they will both benefit, in the long run, as will the people they seek to protect. Gene himself is a damaged character, steeped in tragedy; his father used to beat him, his mother, and his kid brother, who later became addicted to heroin and who has been missing for a number of years. His alcoholism and violence are, therefore, almost ingrained in him, but part of the reason *I* wanted Sam to stay in 1973 was to help him. Similarly, I think Sam has a lot to offer the other characters; he is Chris's mentor, and has gained a begrudging amount of respect from Ray. Everyone seems to look up to him at the station, and it is there where he can make most difference. He can reform from within and, surely, that's better than leaving them to run riot without him? And, yeah, of course he got the girl; it was a Hollywood ending.
3. Where *is* he? I haven't really got the foggiest, but I'm glad he is where he is. At the end of the day, it is just a television show, but *what* a television show. You once told me that you loved your job because it allowed you to be a part of people's lives and it was important to do if only one person listened to or read your story and it interested them or made them happy or whatever. "Inform, Educate and Entertain," you said to me, and Life on Mars certainly educated and entertained me. The information was a litte confusing but, hey, two out of three ain't bad.
It was a smashing piece of television, worth the license fee (which I don't pay) alone and something you should, as a BBC employee, be claiming to be proud, however tenuously, to be associated with.
I know I would be. :)
(P.S. I'm too important and busy to proof-read. (Thesis, and all that.)If your reply consists of spelling and/or grammar corrections, I *will* eat the three Jaffa cakes I've kept for you. And then accuse you of having no soul.)
Only one issue dear boy, you cannot despise all that Gene Hunt stands for , he is a City fan and therefore a genuine boy in Blue, so he does have a redeeming feature, the guy whomcame to him for help was probably a red and hence gene was not too concerned about his death especially as the villain was certainly a red
First off, I know this is late (by about a year), so it may not even post, but here goes ; )
I'm afraid I don't see how Sam has changed Gene in any way, if anything Sam has become more tolerant of Gene's "methods".
Right to the very end, Gene was "torturing" people for God's sake ! He got civilians murdered just to make a bust & his quote 'Human rights are for human beings" basically summed up his entire attitude re: human & civil rights. *He* gets to decide who is & who is not human based on his convenience. Hitler would be proud.
I'm not even going to bring up his hatred of the Irish, or the fact that he beat & humiliated a man in front of his own family just because he belonged to a union.
.
Unfortunately, Hunt's kind aren't extinct. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, he's alive and doing well. So it's difficult for me to just detach and enjoy the show without reacting to it as if those thing weren't going on today. Because they are. Please don't say that they were all just part of that decade. There were those *very* concerned with these same issues long before the '70's. There have always been good, decent people who knew the difference between right & wrong.
Sadly, Gene Hunt is not, nor ever will be, one of them.
And I also believe that if the show had progressed into another season, Sam would have become a monster like Hunt & *that* would have been an even greater tragedy.
Juli - it's never too late. Thanks for leaving the comment!
I agree with you (even if I did have to re-read my post to remind myself what I wrote last year!). Gene Hunt is a monster and, as I said at the time, while he's great to watch on TV, if you spent any time with him in real life that'd soon become clear.
Whether Sam would have become the same... I don't know. I still don't believe he would have jumped anyway, so who knows?
I only saw the first couple of episodes of Ashes To Ashes, then got bored. Does Gene get his comeuppance at any point?
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