History Series / LifeOnMars2008

* GeneHunting - JustForPun [[spoiler:This brings up some interesting questions about Sam and his relationship with Gene Hunt's daughter in the simulation]]
* [[HelpYourselfInTheFuture Help Yourself In The Past]]: Sam saves himself a few times, in a few different ways.

* CallForward: In "Everybody Knows It's Windy", Gene reads in the paper that Vice President Spiro Agnew has just resigned, and comments, "What's next? The President being involved in a burglary?"

The American version of ''[[Series/LifeOnMars2006 Life on Mars]]'', set in UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity. The plots in the early series were close remakes of the BBC original, only localized in: Sam Tyler of the NYPD is hunting a serial killer, listens to Music/DavidBowie, gets hit by a car, wakes up in 1973, becomes a FishOutOfTemporalWater who is dealing with the different standards of the time and hears voices in his head and on TV that suggest he may just be in a coma. As the show progressed, it introduced the reoccurring {{motifs}} of tiny robots (which may or may not be released into people to prove the existence of a human soul), toy rocket ships, and a mysterious group called the Aries Toy Company (more sinister than it sounds). Even the mentions of Luke Skywalker count. There were also hints of a government conspiracy and even the introduction of another character who said he had been abducted from the future as well. The whole thing was a [[MindScrew head scratcher]] for sure.

** OrWasItADream: [[spoiler:The final image of "Gene Hunt"'s loafer and slacks hitting the Mars ground. This may be just for the visual. It may be Sam's mind calling back the simulation he just lived through. Or it may imply that Sam is still hallucinating somehow.]] What's real? Do we really even know? Some have wondered if this was deliberately done to provide the possibility in case of a super-last-second renewal.
* AndYouWereThere: In the finale, everyone from the police force [[spoiler:is a part of the crew on the ship to Mars. Sam also slept in pod 2B. They crew is on a "gene hunt" for life on Mars (presumably bacterial), and the Gene Hunt of 1973 is Sam's father.]]

* TimeTravel: sort of...

* AllJustADream:[[spoiler:The finale establishes that the entire experience was a "neural-sim" while Sam and his crew were on a mission to Mars. Sam had requested to live through the 2 year journey as a cop in 2008, but a meteor-storm mid-flight caused a glitch in his programming. The setting reverted back to 1973, but he kept his 2008 memories.]]