The slow, rolling boil of Life On Mars continues on.  “Home Is Where You Hang Your Holster,” episode 11 of the ABC’s adaptation of the award winning BBC series of the same name, gives us more mythology and more character development, lightly dampened by family and romantic melodrama. More excellent glam rock lends to the authentic 1973 atmosphere.

The mythology of Life On Mars’ central premise, Detective Sam Tyler’s dislocation in time from 2008/2009 to 1973, took a galloping leap forward when a perp with a story identical to Sam’s gets dragged into the 125.

When the 125 detectives bust a brothel (a “No Tell Hoe-Tell,” per wisecracking detective Ray Carling), one of the johns turns out to be Bobby Prince, a colorful muckraking city politician. In private, Prince tells Sam that he, too, is from 2009, and that he has figured out how to get back.  At one point in the exchange between Sam and Prince, he shares news from 2009–specifically, that a black man has become president. During the episode, Sam even sees fleeting television images (a now recurring “channel” from 2008/2009 back to Sam in 1973) of Barack Obama’s inaugural speech.

Prince even proclaimed to Sam that 2009 is so much better and hopeful than 1973.  For this viewer, this sequence  was hauntingly effective, stitching together emotionally engaging imagery from today with snowy gray bleakness of Sam’s 1973 reality.  At an instinctive, emotional level, I agreed with Prince–even with gloomy headlines portending the dawn of a modern day Great Depression, hopeless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and environmental meltdown, I knew that I would rather be in 2009 than 1973.  I suspect most viewers agree.

The arrival of Prince, and his apparently obsessive desire to return to 2009, give focus to several intriguing questions and puts the mythology of Life On Mars center stage. Are there more Sam Tylers and Bobby Princes wandering around, suffering in silence and/or madness, and will Sam Tyler encounter another?  Is dislocation in time a result of a kind of cosmic accident, or part of a design or conspiracy?  Are the Russians and the Aries project and the little robots merely observers of Sam’s and Prince’s ‘condition,’ or are they orchestrating or otherwise conspiring to cause it? And is the hellishness that Sam and Prince feel in 1973 a reflection of the awfulness of the past, or the result of the uncertainty of knowing that a whole other existence has been left behind?

Unfortunately, Prince gets killed before any of this can be meaningfully explored. Later in the episode, Annie uncovers evidence that Prince actually did suffer the same dislocation in time–or the delusion thereof–that haunts Sam.

Hunt’s response to the shooting is lock down the 125 station house and find the killer.  Over the course of the episode, Hunt cleverly susses out the killer in the interstices between family and romantic melodrama that unfolds between Hunt, his estranged daughter Maria, and Sam.

Conveniently, Maria happens to be in the precinct at the moment of the lockdown, forcing confrontations between her and Gene and Sam.  As a result, some ham-fisted Maria character development unfolds. The audience previously had been led to believe that Maria was a tough, no-nonsense, liberated 70s kind of gal–a kind of slutty Mary Tyler Moore–but this episode completes her transformation into a petulant, obsessive ingrate. Obviously, Maria is being set up as a foil to the brainy-girl-next-door Annie for future Life On Mars melodrama–a cynical sop to supposed female demographic viewing preferences.

The lives of two other characters unfold more interestingly–and convincingly–when Annie gets paired up with the philistine Ray Carling for some investigative street work in the aftermath of the brothel bust.  In an unexpected display of taking Annie seriously as a  law enforcement professional, Ray introduces Annie to his wife, Denise, who is–cue The Office‘s Andy Bernard–delightful!

I had expected the character of Ray’s wife to have been developed into an impossibly awful off screen harpy, a kind of dialogue device seen on so many tired sitcoms.  Instead, the audience gets a look into Ray’s more or less stable and blissful domestic situation.  In keeping with his doting big-brother role seen an episode or two ago, Ray turns out to be a doting and nurturing, if somewhat confining, husband to his outgoing and creative wife.

Annie hits it off immediately with Ray’s wife, further reinforcing Annie’s versatile nature, but by episode’s end, Annie shows herself not only as an ideal, consensus-making feminine caregiver–but also as an ideal, kick-ass law enforcement professional when she quick-wittedly saves Ray’s life. The impromptu pairing gives Ray and Annie ample opportunity to spout their respective personal philosophies. In a moment that indicates how elevated Sam has become in Annie’s estimation, she lets on that she acknowledges Sam’s account of the future–that women will take their place alongside male detectives.  Her assessment of Sam as a “case” to be studied changes a bit as well, when she realizes that the murdered Prince suffers the same time-dislocation problem as Sam.

And there was more excellent glam rock! “Ballroom Blitz” by the long forgotten The Sweet backgrounded the cathouse bust that kicked off the episode.  The Sweet’s other big top 40 hit, “Little Willie,” played during a bust scene earlier in the season.  I’m ready for the Glam Rock revival, but instead, in the real world, there’s a revival of Journey. Barf!

Great mythology in this episode, but melodramatic remnants of the earlier, abortive David “Ally McBeal” Kelly version of Life On Mars stuck in my craw.  This ditty gets 4.75 Harvey Keitel Fists of Fury.