A lot of good shows return or debut in 2009. Below are the “genre” shows we tend to cover here at TVZ: WINTER PREMIERES: Thurs., Dec. 25 Doctor Who (BBC) Sun., Jan. 11 24 (Fox) Thurs., Jan. 15 Smallville (CW) Supernatural (CW) Fri., Jan. 16 Battlestar Galactica (Sci Fi) Wed., Jan. 21 Lost (ABC) Wed., [...]
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, [...]
When the history of of the US production of Life On Mars is written, I fully expect a tale of visionary writers, directors, and actors in pitched battle against old-guard network execs and ad sales sycophants who “know” what works on TV because they’ve been running shows since M*A*S*H and Hill Street Blues. Or it will turn out that [...]
In an earlier review of Life on Mars, I described the show as a Law And Order-style procedural with Mad Men retro cache. The fifth episode, ”Things To Do In New York When You Think You’re Dead,” manages to channel both the old Bill Cosby vehicle I Spy and the ne plus ultra of network TV cheese, Touched [...]
When science fiction is at its best, it weaves together the familiar and identifiable with speculative, impossible, or fantastic elements to tell stories that could not be told otherwise. Week four of the ABC series Life on Mars gave us its best episode yet by putting the show’s central science fiction premise front and center. [...]
The third installment of ABC’s new procedural-with-a-gimmick Life on Mars is ”My Maharishi Is Bigger Than Your Maharishi,” which is the first script for this series that ABC’s production team did not cross-walk over from the original BBC series. And it showed, sort of. In typical network fashion, this all-American episode of Life on Mars went [...]
In the second episode of Life on Mars, ABC’s new police procedural with a twist, the audience gets a huge plate of ’70s-era police reality with a side serving of anxiety-inducing warped reality. The result is a workable balance between gritty police procedural and trippy meditation on the Big Questions, like sanity and reality. First, [...]
One of the ways I dismiss entertainment I’m inclined to dislike is by imagining the ridiculous pitch line that certainly must have been uttered to risk-averse network execs, studio execs, publishers, and other gatekeepers. For example, The DaVinci Code: “It’s a Tom Clancy thriller for people who listen to NPR.” “It’s a procedural like CSI [...]
Guys, it’s a poorly-kept secret that I thought the original David E. Kelly pilot for the U.S. version of Life on Mars was a complete disaster. ABC obviously thought it was, too, because they scrapped Kelly’s abomination and hired Josh Appelbaum (“Alias,” “October Road”), André Nemec (“Alias,” “October Road”) and Scott Rosenberg to start from scratch, [...]
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