Last night, Life on Mars—a series about a police detective who is hit by a car and is inexplicably thrown back in time from 2008 to the same New York precinct in 1973—concluded its run. Up until last night, at least, it was a solid series with such great story that explored what it means to love, sacrifice and make your way in this world of ours. A series that asked deeper questions and didn’t always come up with pat answers—like life. A series that brought God-talk into these open spaces.(Caution: major spoilers—and rant—ahead!)
And now, well, I really don’t know what to say. Um. Seriously?! It ends like that? It’s all a dream? You see, it turns out that Sam is actually one of several astronauts on an Earth mission to Mars in 2035. To kill the time during the two-year journey, the space-ship’s computer runs virtual-reality-like dreams for the astronauts, but Sam’s has a glitch caused by a minor run-in with a meteorite. He wakes up okay, and it turns out the people in his dream are just virtual reality versions of his fellow astronauts.
Oh, man. I feel really cheated.
We were warned to expect something different from the Brits, who created the original series on which the American version was based. While the Brit version had a (much) more ambiguous ending, at least that series left the characters intact with some thought-provoking questions about what makes life worth living.
Maybe I'll get a hold of the Brit version and forget this one existed.
Except I can’t. I really loved these characters. They were real and flawed and yet beautiful. They got angry, made bad choices, but tried to figure out what it means to love. Their stories encouraged us to examine our own stories and lives. To simply erase them all as a figment of a computer’s simulation? Oh, Lord have mercy.
I find that the reflections of The Star-Ledger’s Alan Sepinwall come closest to expressing my frustration:
Words fail me.Maybe I should just relax, consider that at least the writers had a chance to wrap up the cancelled series, laugh at the irony of it all, or chalk it up to something like an April Fool's joke. But honestly, I'm simply disappointed and flabbergasted. And now, while I actually come to a different conclusion on it, I think I can understand a bit more how Barbara Nicolosi felt about Battlestar Galactica’s finale.
It's one thing to say that 1973 wasn't real, or even that the present-day material wasn't real (as the UK finale briefly suggested in a head-fake to the audience), but to say that neither was real?
That none of what the viewer watched for these 17 episodes mattered? That it was all a very literal joke on the series' title?
Well, if I was someone who had actually ridden this particular train from beginning to end, sad that the ratings weren't strong enough to keep the show around, I would be furious about this. As it was, I was pretty mad that I stayed up after "Lost" just to watch it.
(Image: ABC) miscctgy