Line #1 Series/LifeOnMars2008


1	[[quoteright:319:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lifeonmars2.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:319:Look at those cavemen go.]]
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4	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 [[Franchise/StarWars 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.
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7	!!Tropes carried over from [[Series/LifeOnMars2006 the British version]]-
8	* CoolCar: The Chevelle SS.
9	* FishOutOfTemporalWater
10	* RunningOverThePlot: This is how Sam ends up in the 1970s here, as well.
11	* TheSeventies: And boy can you tell. Ray, in particular, looks straight out of the Music/BeastieBoys' "Sabotage" video.
12	* TimeTravel: Sort of (though not in the way viewers initially assumed)...
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15	!!New tropes unique to the American version
16	* AllJustADream:[[spoiler:The finale establishes that the entire experience was a "neural-sim" while Sam and his crew -- who in reality are all astronauts -- 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.]]
17	** OrWasItADream: [[spoiler:The final image of "Gene Hunt"'s loafer and slacks hitting the Martian 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.
18	* AndYouWereThere: In the finale, everyone from the police force [[spoiler:is a part of the crew on the ship to Mars. Windy is the ship's AI. 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.]]
19	** [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] as well. [[spoiler:The last thing Gene says to Sam in the simulation is [[Film/TheWizardOfOz "I'll miss you most of all, Scarecrow."]]]]
20	* BigApplesauce
21	* ByTheBookCop: Sam, Annie, and Chris.
22	* 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? [[UsefulNotes/RichardNixon The President being involved in a burglary]]?"
23	* CallingTheOldManOut: Sam to Vic on two different occasions, most notably in the series finale.
24	* CassandraTruth: A few times, Sam slips some stuff from the future which his colleagues naturally refuse to believe.
25	** Working a case involving a murdered man who turns out to be gay, Hunt is surprised the guy kept it quiet. Sam mentions how lots of men are able to stay in the closet and brings up Rock Hudson. Hunt laughs out loud at the idea of "the Rock being gay? He and Doris Day were carrying on like crazy!"
26	** When the big Muhammad Ali-Ken Norton rematch is coming, everyone assumes a "washed up" Ali will lose. Sam (who knows Ali will score a decisive victory) can't help cleaning up taking bets.
27	* CelebrityStar: See above.
28	* ClearMyName
29	* CowboyCop: Hunt and Ray. Funnily enough, Sam becomes one in his pursuit of a man he recognizes as a serial killer he busted in the future - and because of media scrutiny, the rest of the department is trying to follow procedure to the letter.
30	* CrypticConversation: The maharishi in "My Maharishi Is Bigger Than Your Maharishi".
31	** And again with the angel/homeless guy in "Things To Do In New York When You Think You're Dead."
32	* CulturalTranslation: That said, it does a very good job of adapting the material into the new setting.
33	* DarkerAndEdgier: Sam's confrontation with his father is much darker than in the British version. In addition to remembering that he saw his father kicking a policewoman to death, as in the British version, Sam discovers that his father was a DiabolicalMastermind who shoots him (twice) and leaves him for dead.
34	** FreudianExcuse: [[spoiler: We find out "Gene Hunt" is his ''actual'' Dad, and they were fighting before he went into the pod.]]
35	* EveryoneHasStandards: Hunt may brutal and semi-corrupt but he has his limits. When he finds Carling is blowing off a case just because the victim was gay, Hunt tears into him, snapping it doesn't matter what the man's sexuality was, he didn't deserve to get killed over it and Carling better treat him with the respect of any murder victim.
36	* TheDitz: Windy, Sam's hippie (and possibly nonexistent) neighbor.
37	* {{Egopolis}}: Gene Hunt likes to think of the area policed by the 125 as "Huntlandia, home of the blueberry crepe."
38	%%* GainaxEnding
39	* GayCruising: Chris has a belated realization of his uncle Harold's nature; he goes out "cruising" to lure out a group of homophobic attackers, and meets his uncle Harold (presumably also cruising). Sam and Annie listening in are highly amused.
40	* HelpYourselfInTheFuture: Sam saves himself a few times, in a few different ways.
41	* HollywoodAtheist: Established in "Things To Do In New York When You Think You're Dead."
42	* HowsYourBritishAccent: Sam fakes an Irish accent for "All The Young Dudes"; naturally, he gets compliments on its realism. (Actor Creator/JasonOMara is Irish.)
43	* ImMrFuturePopCultureReference: Sam introduces himself as Detective Luke Skywalker to his mother because it was the first thing he could think of. The name follows him.
44	** When he has to cover as a pilot, he uses the name Tom Cruise. He uses Bono when he fakes being Irish as well.
45	** When Gene and a woman go undercover with him, he assigns them the names George and Laura Bush.
46	* ItRunsInTheFamily: Sam worries that his father's dark, destructive behavior runs through his veins. Several times he lets these urges overwhelm him.
47	** Subverted in the series finale [[spoiler:when we learn his father isn't really his father.]]
48	* ItWillNeverCatchOn: Ray Carling derides a man who lost all his money on a portable phone company. As he said, "Who wants to carry around a phone?"
49	* ALittleSomethingWeCallRockAndRoll: in "Things To Do In New York When You Think You're Dead", except by rapping [[Music/VanillaIce Ice Ice Baby]]. It works.
50	* LockedInARoom: More than once.
51	* MadeOfIron\|: It's one thing when Sam left the hospital AMA to investigate leads on his personal situation. At least he waited. But Ray Carling is so eager to get revenge on the Irish Mafia for shooting him and Chris Skelton that he leaves immediately after his wounds are sewn up! [[spoiler: Though he's in a VR simulation, so this may be part of the program.]]
52	* MindScrew: [[spoiler: So Sam is supposed to be from the future. But the last shot is of Gene Hunt's normal, white slipper hitting the surface of Mars.]] Is this in Sam's head? Is the whole thing in Sam's head? What's real or not? The ambiguity leaves a lot of people still guessing.
53	* ModestyBedsheet: A few instances, but the most baffling by far happens when a HookerWithAHeartOfGold seduces the protagonist by taking her bra off in front of him ([[ToplessnessFromTheBack with her back to the camera]]) and jumping into his bed. In the following sex scene she's enthusiastically bouncing away on top of him... with her bra put back on.
54	** This is a nearly shot-for-shot remake of a sequence from the original British series, but in that version she remains topless for the sex scene (which is permitted by post-watershed UK broadcast standards.)
55	* {{Motifs}}: Many, most notably the little robots that see into your soul and the various rockets/spaceships seen in every single episode. Makes sense in the GrandFinale.
56	* NotNamedInOpeningCredits: Inverted, [[spoiler: with Lisa Bonet named in the finale despite not appearing in that episode...probably so as not to give away the show's ending]].
57	* ProphecyTwist: That coma Sam got visions of throughout the first half of the season is not necessarily ''his''.
58	* TheReveal: Say what you want about the American version, but [[spoiler: the shot of the World Trade Center in the pilot episode]] is pretty shocking.
59	* RewatchBonus: Watching the series over shows that the ending was anything but an AssPull. It was very deliberately set up.
60	* RightThroughHisPants: See ModestyBedsheet.
61	* ShoutOutToShakespeare: Sam lives in apartment 2B.
62	* SpoileredRotten: When it's discovered the victim in a case was gay, Carling (who had been gung-ho at first), blows it off as not important which angers Sam. Carling leaves early to check out a showing of ''Film/SoylentGreen'' and Sam yells after him [[spoiler: "The crackers are people!"]]
63	* TechnologyMarchesOn: Invoked constantly in-universe:
64	** Sam quickly learns he has to start carrying around change for pay phones as cell phones won't be around for over a decade.
65	** Sam often complains over having to physically change the dial on his TV which gets only five channels.
66	** While at the forensics lab, Sam asks "what did the DNA results say" and even the scientists have no idea what he's talking about. Likewise, he's thrown to hear a simple fingerprint check will take over a week to process.
67	* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: [[spoiler:Where Sam is from.]]
68	* TwistEnding
69	* WaxingLyrical: Repeated references to Bowie songs.
70	** Rose saying, "Look at those cavemen go."
71	* WesternTerrorists: One episode featured the 1970s student-radical group the Weathermen claiming responsibility for bomb attacks on former colleagues of Gene Hunt's.
72	* WhenYouComingHomeDad: Hinted at in the finale.
73	* WorthlessForeignDegree: The robber in "Take a Look at the Lawmen" was a scientist in the Soviet Union, but "here I rob bank."
74	* WrapItUp
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Context Series / LifeOnMars2008