LIFE ON MARS (U.S.) - DVD review

It never ceases to amaze me when a decent TV show gets axed while the garbage keeps flashing across our screens. Sometimes I feel like an errant astronaut watching space junk roll by, there's so much bad TV. "Life on Mars," a U.S. version of a BBC series, learned well in advance that it wouldn't be renewed for a second season, despite being smartly written, engagingly cast, and critically acclaimed. But these days, none of that counts for much. What matters are the Nielsen ratings, and after a debut that drew 11.33 million viewers, this Sci-Fi/crime drama saw its audience drop to 5.86 million by the end.

That's unfortunate and hard to explain, because the ABC-TV cop series pulls you in from the beginning and holds you with a tantalizing supernatural/Sci-Fi secret and clues dispensed with the same judiciousness as that more famous ABC-TV supernatural/Sci-Fi drama, "Lost."

It begins with a big bang, and that's no theory. After they finally track down and apprehend serial killer Colin Raimes, Det. Sam Tyler (Jason O'Mara) and his partner, Maya Daniels (Lisa Bonet) are frustrated when Raimes' attorney pulls out an alibi tape from a Las Vegas casino showing him gambling the night away. But Maya knows he's dirty and she decides to track him on her own, against regulations. While she's stalking the killer, Sam and the others learn that Raimes has a twin with a gambling addiction, and quickly he goes to the park where she last communicated with him, only to find her bloody top. It's not just the top of his partner. Maya was his love-interest as well, so it's twice as painful. Holding out hope that she's still alive, he drives off in search of her and while talking on the phone is struck by a car. Within moments he's getting up again, dazed but confused by the landscape. He looks around, and suddenly realizes it's no longer 2008 when before him loom the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

It's not his "Starsky & Hutch" car he insists to a uniformed police officer, but in the glove box is his registration. And his driver's license also is dated 1973, and his police badge is retro. Afros, tie-dyed shirts, love beads, Fu Manchu mustaches, and '70s music quickly reinforce that he's somehow landed in 1973. Back at the 125th precinct everything is different, including the people. And police work in 1973 is considerably less "sensitive" than police work in 2008. That's part of the interest of this series, in which we see two vastly different systems of values clashing. It's like "good cop/bad cop," with 1973 being the "Who needs a warrant?" Dirty Harrys and 2008 the play-by-the-rules Mirandas. I feel less of an enlightened person saying so, but it's more fun watching the '70s tactics. Besides, despite the main character's rants, it's not all black and white. "I'm not squeaky clean," the Lieutenant says. "And neither is this city."

What's clever about this show isn't just the premise, which finds Sam rationalizing possible explanations for his predicament, including a dream, a coma, an alternate reality, a drug trip, an alien experiment, time travel, an accident-based trauma, or an answer yet to be discovered. It's also clever that the producers not only went with a real 8-Track soundtrack of '70s tunes (including David Bowie's "Life on Mars?"), but a score that's so retro you almost expect Starsky, Hutch, and Huggie Bear to check in.

There's a great cast, too. In addition to O'Mara, who has the kind of presence needed to pull off a role like this, there's Lt. Gene Hunt, played with relish by Harvey Keitel, and Det. Ray Carling (Michael Imperioli, "The Sopranos") as the quintessential '70s plainclothes cop. To emphasize that no one's come a long way, baby, in 1973, there's a blue-uniformed policewoman named Annie Norris (Gretchen Mol), who's daily life is one of sexual harassment--much to Tyler's amazement. She's studying psychology, but no one seems to care about her mind. And when she intuits that a man was a "homosexual" and Tyler uses the term "gay bashing," the other detectives ridicule him because, of course, they've never heard the term. Fun with language, customs, and mores add color and texture to the series, so that what could have been a routine police procedural turns into something of more depth. The tagline is "a modern day cop in a 1973 world," and it's a what-if scenario that's really entertaining, and it sets up all sorts of "Wizard of Oz" or "It's a Wonderful Life" speculation by Tyler. Is he there for a reason? What might that reason be? To save Maya? To catch the killer (whom he meets when the killer is just a boy, in a chilling scene)? To help his mother (yes, he sees himself as a little boy)? Or maybe it's something that only has to do with him.

Sometimes the flashes inside Tyler's mind get a little overblown, kind of like Tommy's inner psyche goes a bit trippy in "Rescue Me." But aside from those excesses, there aren't a whole lot of things wrong with this series. The scripts are fairly smart (with only occasionally cheesy moments, some of which may be '70s deliberate), the acting is right on, and the clues are spread out enough so that you don't get fidgety. I won't share any of them because that will spoil the fun, but I suspect that if things seem a bit hurried near the end--and at least we get the finale to the show, since they knew it was being cancelled--it's because the BBC series it was patterned after ran for two seasons, while the U.S. version had to cram enough clues to set up the ending in just one. But at least this feels like a complete package. It would have been disappointing and frankly pointless to buy a DVD that had one season of a Sci-Fi mystery like this one if it didn't come full circle.

"Life on Mars" never really caught a wave because it didn't catch a break. Though the audience was respectable, ABC put the show on hold for a while and brought it back in January . . . right after "Lost." So not only did they interrupt whatever momentum the show was building and disconnect fans, but then they put a similar Sci-Fi "mystery" show right after the Daddy of them all.

All 17 episodes are included in this set, transferred to four single-sided discs and housed in a standard-size keep case with overlapping spindles on each inside cover (which I and every other collector HATE). "Life on Mars" is rated TV-14.

Video:
There's kind of a Mars-like red wash that colors the video in the '70s sequences, along with other earth-tones in the wardrobe and set design palette. There's a fair amount of grain in these sections, but the level of detail is decent. "Life on Mars" is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen.

Audio:
The audio is a competent English Dolby Digital 5.1, with Spanish and French subtitles. Don't look for anything rocking. It's a soundtrack that's as subdued as the colors in the '70s sequences, done deliberately, perhaps, to replicate that 8-Track feel. No complaints here, but no grand impression, either.

Extras:
The one bonus feature I'm surprised isn't here is the original ABC pilot, which featured only O'Mara and none of the other actors. Plus, it was set in Chicago, not New York.

If you listen to the commentaries (especially the finale) you learn that they were planning the bombshell ending for Season 1 all along. Though the commentary tracks cover the usual ground, it's clear that the producers really wanted to recreate as much of the original BBC series as they could. Producers Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec team up for Episode 1 and Episode 7 commentaries, while producers Scott Rosenberg and Michael Katleman team with O'Mara for an Episode 5 commentary (which aired right before that death-sentence hiatus), and everyone but Nemec returns for the finale commentary track.

Also included are two featurettes: "To Mars and Back" runs just over 15 minutes and combines the usual mixture of cast/crew interviews with behind-the-scenes clips as they talk about the show and filming in New York City, and "Sunrise to Sunset with Jason O'Mara," a 10-minute day-in-the-life shadow event that shows O'Mara possibly showing off for fans and paying the price when he does his own stunt. Then, as if he were elected to represent "70s TV, Lee Majors ("The Six Million Dollar Man") turns up with O'Mara for a joint set tour. I'm not sure what Majors has to do with this series, even after watching it, and unless you happen to be a Majors fan you'll probably just shake your head through the entire (brief) eight minutes. Rounding out the bonus features is a three-minute blooper reel and 10 deleted scenes that run a little over 15 minutes.

Bottom Line:
"Life on Mars" is an entertaining TV show that lasted just a single season, presumably because it wasn't soapy enough for today's TV audiences. But if you like '70s crime dramas and "Lost" Sci-Fi puzzlements, you might check it out. I never saw the BBC version, which is reported to be superior, but this one plays out just fine.