This week’s Life On Mars evokes 70s social change–again–to probe protagonist Sam Tyler’s psyche and deepen the mystery of his dislocation in time. Long-forgotten lines of toys for 70s era boys are also evoked, for a little extra authentic period flavor.

The plot of “The Man Who Sold The World” is straightforward: while working a kidnapping case, the 125 squad picks up a suspect who turns out to be. . .

. . . Sam Tyler’s father, who disappeared early in Sam’s youth. Tyler the father claims to be a mere flunky for some local small-time gangsters, but hard-boiled boss detective Gene Hunt has his doubts. Tyler the son, wanting to believe the best about Tyler the father, is disposed to trust him.  The kidnapped child is rescued by the 125 squad, but Tyler the son immediately figures out that Tyler the father is actually the kidnapper. After he saves Annie from being fatally assaulted by Tyler the father, he realizes that his father disappeared from his life because he was a hardened criminal.

The mystery of Sam’s dislocation in time deepens during this episode.  Sam realizes that a tip for solving newspaper puzzles from his father is actually a clue about his own mysterious dislocation in time.  Using the tip, Sam gleans information from case files that lead him to a mysterious telephone in a dark basement.  The dramatic buildup to this development leads the viewer to believe that Sam is being led to his father (so he can arrest him) but instead leads to a mysterious voice with more clues.

Sam also had a flashback/dream sequence that seemed to indicate that maybe he is a veteran of the Gulf War.  He’s the right age for that. Hmmm . . .

The social change at the center of this episode is the 70s-era “broken family.”  Everybody crows about the changes wrought in the 60s and 70s by Woodstock and Vietnam and feminism and desegregation and drugs and the Beatles.  However, for many of us who were children in during this period, the single mostly keenly felt bit of revolutionary social change was absent fathers.  

As a result of feminism-inspired reforms in divorce law (which addressed very real inequities faced by women during divorce) and working women’s new economic power, the stigma of divorce and marital failure more or less disappeared.  Meanwhile, courts, authoritative experts like doctors and clergy, and general social norms enforced the idea that mothers should be the default caregivers of choice when marriages fell apart.  

In short, it was easy for fathers to disappear or to become irrelevant, like Sam Tyler’s dad. Thus, Sam Tyler is a Latchkey KId (read Ted Rall’s excellent hybrid comic/book for a long, bitter meditation on this topic), and in the “The Man Who Sold The World,” he faces the origin of this central fact of his existence. Sam’s father, it would seem, really is his enemy, both at a personal and profesional level.

In another moment of confusion over adult male role models for boys, Sam recalls in detail a birthday gift that his child-self is soon to receive.  The gift: a Big Jim doll. Big Jim was a slightly smaller, thoroughly de-militarized knock-off of GI Joe, who closely resembled Ken, as in Barbie’s dude.  While Big Jim was into manly stuff like fire fighting and splitting logs and basketball, he was GI Joe’s wannabe wimp cousin.

Music made a comeback in “The Man Who Sold The World,” but the song with that title, by David Bowie, did not appear in this episode.  We were treated to Bowie’s “Life On Mars,” though, as well as “Reeling in the Years” by the enigmatic jazz-pop fusion of Steely Dan.  The inclusion of a Bread song (I can’t bear to write the song title) as background to Sam’s childhood family memories topped the unmitigated corniness of earlier episodes’ use of awful Simon and Garfunkel tunes.

Some of the more conventional soundtrack music confirmed for me that part of the Life On Mars artistic vision is indeed homage to 70s cop shows.  During a chase sequence at the beginning of the episode, the trumpet heavy, funk-influenced track might have been lifted intact from an episode of The Streets of San Francisco or Starsky and Hutch.

An almost-final note: “The Man Who Sold The World” had me engaged at an emotional level unlike previous Life On Mars episodes. I was one of these children of divorce, lost track of my ne’er-do-well dad, and I received a Big Jim for my birthday in 1973.  Missed the Gulf War by a couple years, but did do a hitch in the Army.  Previous episodes resonated, but the historical aspect remained abstract–I don’t know anybody who was a hippie, a yippie, a Black nationalist, victim of lobotomy.  The episode linked the 21st century Sam Tyler to 35 years hence, in a way that I think resonated with many viewers beside me.  Would be interested in hearing from TVZ readers and listeners who see themselves in Life On Mars.

With mystery and emotional resonance to spare, “The Man Who Sold The World” gets 4.6 Harvey Keitel fists of fury.