Life On Mars Sequel Coming

[Dr Syntax Head]

About as much point as a breaking bad sequel. It ended perfectly already.

[Custard]

On at 7

Matthew Graham (@TremensDr) Tweeted: https://twitter.com/TremensDr/status/1245266947341783041?

When this was first mentioned a couple of months back, John Simm expressed an interest, so who knows? It could easily be a book or radio series or something. But something is definitely happening

[Mango Chimes]

Not sure it's fair to get pissy about an unnecessary sequel to Ashes To Ashes and the threat of it retconning a thing you enjoyed. Ashes To Ashes was that already.

I didn't like it. I liked Life On Mars.

[Custard]

Ashes deffo had a wonky first series, but they got it right with the final two. The last series was as good as Mars, for me. Brilliant television

[Malcy]

Ashes deffo had a wonky first series,but they got it right with the final two. The last series was as good as Mars, for me. Brilliant television

Yeah series 3 was great. Especially when there were so many hints that answers were coming. The starfield, Daniel Mays and his devilish character. I've been meaning to do a rewatch for a while so this is as good a time as any I suppose.

I would never have thought that the scene where Sam is about to go in to the record shop in a series 1 episode was all CGI. It looked superb for 2006. I think it was the DVD extras that revealed it.

[Natnar]

Not sure it's fair to get pissy about an unnecessary sequel to Ashes To Ashes and the threat of it retconning a thing you enjoyed. Ashes To Ashes was that already.

I didn't like it. I liked Life On Mars.

I felt that Life On Mars was the lesser prequel to Ashes To Ashes. I found Alex to be a far more interesting character than Sam Tyler. Maybe i liked Ashes more because it's an era i can remember.

[Custard]

Yeah, just started my Mars and Ashes rewatch. It's great stuff. Nothing has really captured me in the same way since, so it's lovely rediscovering it

[Mango Chimes]

I didn't watch more than a few episodes, but it just felt off. The grimy brown 70s of LOM, whilst obviously also pastiche, felt more rooted than the bright music video 80s of ATA. Gene was further watered down and caricature, firing up the Quattro. And the Pierrot clown was on the nose. Didn't really like the main character, and her knowing about Sam put too much of a fix on what happened at the end of LOM.

Also: worse song, isn't it.

[Malcy]

https://mobile.twitter.com/TremensDr

https://mobile.twitter.com/AJPharoah

Just starting now on these accounts.

[Malcy]

Robert Carlyle almost said yes to the Sam Tyler role and Ray Winston considered play Gene Hunt but they always wanted Simm for Tyler.

[Malcy]

Going to be set in the 70's, 80's and an alternate now. They also said they want to bring back as many as the characters from both series as they can.

[Malcy]

Main points of the new series.

#LifeOnMarsLive DCI Litton will be back to get under Gene's feet. (The Final Chapter).

#LifeOnMarsLive And please do remember that the incredible Jim Keats sang "We'll Meet Again" as he walked away from Gene..... (The Final Chapter)

#LifeOnMarsLive As we enter the final phase of the ep I'd like to tell you that in The final Chapter there will be a TV show WITHIN our Tv show.
TYLER: MURDER DIVISION

#LifeOnMarsLive We would never make another Mars unless we really had something to say and could push the envelope all over again.
Finally we have something.

#LifeOnMarsLive Final Chapter will be set in Manchester and in London.

#LifeOnMarsLive We are seeing it as 4 or 5 episodes and then done.

[cakeinmilk]

Has this actually been commissioned or is it all hypothetical at this point?

[Custard]

This sounds nutty. And suddenly the expectation and excitement has risen substantially

If they've managed to get a lot of the cast to return, I guess it's been commissioned. Maybe Netflix are stumping up for it, if the BBC are being idiots and rejecting it

[Tony Tony Tony]

A Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes thread gives me a chance to air my Glenister anecdote.

A relative of mine was in the show Mad Dogs and on a summer visit he had a good old chinwag with my next door neighbour as we enjoyed the sunshine in the garden. The neighbour and her husband were then on holiday in Spain, where Mad Dogs was recording. They were in a bar with another couple when in came a group containg my relative and Phil Glenister. My neighbour was remembered by my relative and the Gene Genie said hello and had a drink with them. As my neighbours husband was a retired policeman he was in awe of the Manc Lion and his stock rose as a result of the meeting.   

[Shaky]

If they go all batshit insane, Twin Peaks S3 with this... it could actually work.

[Phil_A]

Are we sure this definitely isn't an elaborate April Fools prank?

[Custard]

The first episode is going to be based in 1977, and focuses on the moment when Eddie Large left his wife for the young sexy female Aladdin from the panto he was starring in

[Mango Chimes]

Are we sure this definitely isn't an elaborate April Fools prank?

It definitely isn't elaborate.

[Rev+]

Has this actually been commissioned or is it all hypothetical at this point?

Doesn't seem to have been, so there's probably the hope of sparking a little bidding war.

Going bugnuts as Shaky suggests would have a bit of an appeal to it if they capped it at a handful of episodes, but then again this isn't Twin Peaks - it tidied itself away at the end of Ashes to Ashes, without much left to resolve.  Nobody's eagerly awaiting its return, either.

[neveragain]

A Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes thread gives me a chance to air my Glenister anecdote.

A relative of mine was in the show Mad Dogs and on a summer visit he had a good old chinwag with my next door neighbour as we enjoyed the sunshine in the garden. The neighbour and her husband were then on holiday in Spain, where Mad Dogs was recording. They were in a bar with another couple when in came a group containg my relative and Phil Glenister. My neighbour was remembered by my relative and the Gene Genie said hello and had a drink with them. As my neighbours husband was a retired policeman he was in awe of the Manc Lion and his stock rose as a result of the meeting.   

My anecdote is that I was an extra, lying dead in a muddy puddle, in Glenister's episode of The Hollow Crown. He walked towards me after a take and said, "Alright?"
"Pfft, yeah!" I chuckled. He walked on.

[Custard]

Him and Simm do seem like a great bunch of lads

[Custard]

I never knew there were four (!) novels written that take place after LOM series two. They started coming out in 2012

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00760GCX6/ref=cm_sw_r_apa_i_f7GIEb462VPHP

All pretty cheap on Kindle at the moment, and received decent feedback, so I'm deffo jumping on them. This planned sequel will probably make them redundant, but still

[Malcy]

I never knew there were four (!) novels written that take place after LOM series two. They started coming out in 2012

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00760GCX6/ref=cm_sw_r_apa_i_f7GIEb462VPHP

All pretty cheap on Kindle at the moment, and received decent feedback, so I'm deffo jumping on them. This planned sequel will probably make them redundant, but still

There's also a few Gene Hunt books as well.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=Gene+hunt&ref=nb_sb_noss

Thrive been sat in my basket for ages. Should really get round to buying them.

[Malcy]

The tweet along things seem to be happening every Wed. Few more behind the scenes tweets tonight.

Apparently the BBC wanted every episode to start with Sam in his hospital bed so the audience weren't confused!

[Cloud]

Just finished watching LOM and ATA for the first time.  Brilliant stuff, both of them.  Don't know why I didn't watch it sooner, my dad watched it at the time it aired and highly recommended it and I just didn't show interest... think there were a few things going on at home at the time and I preferred to just keep to myself. Now I've seen it I know what I've been missing all this time!

Thoughts with MASSIVE SPOILERS (why anyone would read a thread about a sequel and not expect spoilers is beyond me but just in case.  Personally I avoided it like the plague as I didn't want to know why it was considered a Life on Mars sequel and not an Ashes to Ashes one)




Loved John Simm as Tyler.  Having only seen him before that as the Master in DW, I actually really like him as a good guy, it suits Simm way better than I was expecting (in fact I prefer him this way to the scenery munching madman in DW)

Hunt was absolutely fine and I'd rather he's kept as he was... yes he was a sexist bigot and a violent thug, that was the POINT, as I'm sure was the neverending cognitive dissonance of having the good guy be a bit of a twat.  I felt very well placed in Tyler/Drake's shoes (more notably the latter), feeling by instinct that he IS a decent guy despite his laundry list of faults and generally believing in him to be The Good Guy, and yet always having that little glimmer of doubt due to his violent tendencies.   

Similarly with Carling.  Raging homophobe, but not offensive in context, and otherwise a decent guy.  I couldn't quite shake the feeling he was your classic example of a closeted homosexual obsessed with showing he's totally not a 'poofter'.

I liked the combination of an ongoing police drama in its own right, and the constant underlying mystery of what the heck is going on long term.  It was all very mysterious and had it ended right there at the end of LOM I'd have been a bit annoyed.  Finally he wakes up, realises the present day in the clean and clinical office is desolate compared to what he just left (well that's how I interpreted it at the time) and goes and jumps off a building so he can get back to the 70s.  Fair enough but you just think "so... what was actually going on then?" as the test card girl just shrugs at the 4th wall and fucks off.

I was disappointed as hell when ATA started and Tyler wasn't in it (not read any behind the scenes stuff but I'm guessing the break and switch will have been for him to go and play the Master) and it was this random woman (not because it's a woman) but it was just like a change in Doctor Who.  You think "what the hell, I miss the old guy, can't get used to this, it's just not the same" and then after the first season or so it just works and you wouldn't have it any other way.  But it was totally out of the blue at first!

Hoped Tyler would appear at some point towards the end. Other than the prisoner who claimed to be him (never really got a follow-up on what that was all about?)

And honestly I thought it'd turn out to be literal to the original title.  That it'd turn out to be something like a future civilisation settled on Mars and dicking about with AI/simulation/something along those lines.  Especially with all the thing of seeing stars (also not really explained?).  So when the final credits rolled I was just staring like "...... is that IT?  The fuck just happened?" - it's only because my dad explained that Hunt is like a St Peter and Keats is the devil that it made some kind of sense.  It's good to have an ending that makes you think though to be honest rather than be spoonfed and I see there's all sorts of Wikipedia and such nowadays to explain what went on.  Very bittersweet ending to find that they're all dead and not coming back, and I did take it as a pretty final ending.  You learn the truth about Hunt (but only fully if you're paying attention during that brief second you see the dead officer's ID card), feel massively sorry for him as the lonely "kid in an adult's body" as he struggles to let go of the people he'd grown fond of and so it loops on for eternity or however long it takes for him to be ready to move on himself.   We don't really get a picture of WHY or HOW any of this is happening but after it's explained it's just "eh, ok, afterlife" and it's done.

I can identify with the notion of heaven being a pub.

Definitely intrigued to see what comes out of this sequel though.  If it could have a more uplifting ending I'd quite like that.  Might be a bit odd just continuing on with the same cast 15 years older and set back in the 70s and 80s again.  But this notion of a "alternate present" is interesting.  Maybe that would explain one other remaining mystery on my mind: if they went to Gene's sort of "passage into the afterlife" when they died then what in the blue hell was going on with them briefly waking up in the present?  Illusion?  Parallel universe?  They died twice?  Seemingly if you die in the 'passage' you end up revived in the present?  My brain hurts :P

[thr0b]

Sam recovered from his coma - he was near death, hence into Gene's world. His suicide was final though, and he really did die.

Alex similarly - she recovered, as I recall she then got shot and was back into Gene's world, and really did die that time.

The American version went with your more literal interpretation of Life On Mars. Could never bring myself to watch it.

I believe they did ask Simm to do another series, but he didn't want to, hence the retooling as Ashes To Ashes, and a brief shot of a lookalike of him in the final series.

[Cloud]

I think it was mostly Alex I was confused by - I must have missed/forgotten/misunderstood her getting shot a second time (in the present).  Poor girl has the worst luck dodging bullets!  This is probably from watching it a bit late at night. I just remember Gene slapping her back to life in his world and not knowing what had happened to her in the present to pull her back. To add to the confusion, she could see Gene in the present as if in both places at once. Maybe she was half dead and didn't recover as well as thought from the bullet being removed.

Watched the first episode of the American one and couldn't see the point. Exactly the same thing but with a yank.  I don't know why they can't just appreciate British TV shows for what they are and have to Americanise them - mind, we seem to have done the same with Law and Order.

[Phil_A]

My feeling is they didn't decide what was actually going on with the whole mythology until the final series of Ashes To Ashes. Up until there's a lot of loose-ends and mysteries that don't really pay off, which suggests they were just kind-of winging it. In fact I'm sure I remember Matthew Graham stating after the last Life On Mars that what we saw in that episode was all there was to it, there was no deeper mystery to be unravelled.

Luckiily they pulled a great ending out of the bag that pretty much makes sense in context of what went before and was a satisfying wrap-up to the whole saga, unlike the final episode of Lost which actually aired just a few days after the last ATA.

It's quite astonishing that the same production team went on to make Bonekickers, a series that made Torchwood look competent and well-made.

[Cloud]

Makes more sense after reading the plot section on Wikipedia.
Seems Alex only dreamed about waking up in 2008 while in a coma in Gene's world. No wonder it's confusing :D

And I guess the part where you see dirt being piled onto a coffin is when she finally dies

Edit: Just as another fun point, I was speculating in the penultimate episode whether Keates was from the present just through the prominence of the green reflection in his glasses (anti-reflective coating) throughout, as if it was a subtle hint.  Seems AR coatings have been around since the 30s, but I'm not sure how long opticians have been using them.