I don't know if anyone caught the BBC series, but it was really good. ABC has done a remake for the US market, and while I was wary at first, they did a great job as well. They've stayed pretty true to the original, and you can't go wrong with Harvey Keitel.
Really? REALLY? A cop somehow goes back in time, that show is good? Really? Or am I missing something? When I saw the preview during "Heroes" I thought "What the hell is this, 1984?" because of the gimmick/twist. Anyway, I'm not asking any of that in a pretentious way, I'm serious. A show about a cop who, somehow, goes back in time to the 70's is good?
Ah, but it's not that straight-forward. A major premise of the show is him trying to figure out how he's there or if he even IS there. And some of the police parts are straight out of cheesy 70's cop shows. I think it's good (although I liked the BBC version better) and the music is great.
It actually is pretty good. The producers seem to be striking a balance by letting the series be "serious" procedural drama on one hand, but use a good deal of humor to keep it from getting too heavy. Besides the novelty of seeing "how things were" visually illustrated, there are also things the actors do that emphasize how different times are, most specifically the role of women in the workplace in the early '70s. Even that social commentary is handled with some humor though, so it's not PC in a way that seems overly moralizing. I'm going to keep watching for now. The last thing I need is another procedural drama addiction (having caught up with LOST, I'm now trying to catch up with The Shield ... starting from the beginning) but so far, Life on Mars has been well worth the time spent watching it.
