Reviewing Life on Mars

Do we say of the man stepping out on the wife who bore his children that he is courageously expressing his authentic self by sleeping with hot twenty-somethings? No. We say that he is an adulterous weasel.

So why do we give "courageous authenticity" awards to the man who bangs other guys?

If this kind of moral reasoning is too strenuous; if in fact observations like "Anti-war demonstrators have rights!", "Gays are people too!" seem like pathbreaking insights, then, boy, do I have the T.V. show for you.

Life on Mars concerns a police detective struck by a car in 2008 and awakened in 1973. How this happens is not explained. The time traveler ingratiates himself with the San Francisco (I think) police department and "resumes" his duties, a set-piece providing him ample opportunity to express shock and horror at what is represented as typical features of 1973 urban policing: racism, sexism, gay bashing, civil rights violations, torture, etc., etc.

On Whiskey's recommendation, I watched the earliest episode I could get: season one, episode three. I was disappointed.

Which is too bad, really, because the concept had a lot of potential. Much like Mad Men does for the 1960s, we get some fond backward glances at the 1970s that will provoke smiles from those of us around back then: the police officer who sniffs the output of a mimeograph machine, for instance, or the pre-CSI indifference to crime scene integrity. And the cast, including Michael Imperioli and Harvey Keitel, give a sympathetic portrait of the policemen facing a new order of law enforcement challenges.

But while Mad Men often (though imperfectly) forces us to bring our own moral judgments to the failings of its time, Life on Mars has these judgements pre-processed and fully articulated by Time Traveler. Now, I am pretty sure that most actual human beings, waking up in the past, would have the moment of holy-crap-everything-sure-is-different-here and proceed with our moral judgements with some ironic detachment. But not this Time Traveler; no, he proceeds with full-octane liberal bluster. Were this bluster presented as a prelude to a mutual exchange of insight--if, indeed, the show was about teaching 2008 Man valuable lessons of the past--then the show could have been quite good. Unfortunately, the show has no lessons for him to learn; he serves only to lecture the past about its sins.

Is liberalism really so decadent that it has nothing left to say but to indulge its self-satisfaction over 1973? Probably. But it doesn't make good television.

Whiskey is quite taken with the mystery of the show's time traveler. Did he really travel through time? Or is he enjoying a coma-induced hallucination? Or, in fact, was 2008 but a dream? 2008 Man is continually having paranormal experiences that supposedly tie him to is future self, but I ultimately decided that these were without purpose.