Life On Mars, episodes three and four
Mar. 14th, 2006 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenI'm still at it. The last episode is downloading as I speak. I love it when an episode of total fannishness coincides with a whole week in which I don't have anything to do. I am, after all, supposed to be resting. If for "resting" you read "getting manically fannish for the first time in six months" then we have achieved something.
I watched episode three yesterday and while I wouldn't say I hated it, it hasn't stuck all that fixedly in my memory, so I'm not entirely sure what to think of it. That said, I'm making no secret of the fact that my favourite bits are the creepy throwbacks (throwforwards?!) to 2006, and episode three had lots of those. (If I may digress a moment, I wish the episodes had titles; I'm being deprived of my greatest geeky pleasure here.) Anyway, back to episode three, I love the deliciously, deliciously sinister fact that the dead man is lying under Sam's kitchen table, or at least where Sam's kitchen table will be. That this isn't satisfactorily explained - I mean, why, of all the places in Manchester, does it have to be under Sam's kitchen table? - can probably go under the long list of ambiguities that need explaining. That said, eeek at the spray bloodstains on the floor, the kitchen cabinets and the cooker and the windows; it's all very effectively done. And more than that, I did like the theme of the dying industries, because it's still relevant even now, sort of. This is why Liverpool was the poorest city in Europe when I was born in it, and in 1973 the trends were already going that way, it was just beginning. It would be blinkered to set a drama in that time and place and not make some mention of it, so kudos to the writers.
Another thing I liked was the dialogue: "My problem would rock your world." Oh, yeah. Similarly, "Gay boy science!"
Also: clowns are scary. Yes they are. And ghostly little BBC2 girls are even scarier.
Moving on to episode four (why no title, siiiigh), waaah. Such perfection. From the beginning, I'd decided that Sam's accent is too well-entrenched for him to have grown up anywhere other than Manchester, and so it seemed fair to expect an episode where he goes to meet himself, or at least, himself at four. And while I wasn't quite right, I think this episode sort of covers the ground. Stuff I liked:
-the set-up, because it too is so ambiguous. You could make a case for 1973 being all a fantasy from this, because arguably, Sam's distant, coma-thick perception of his mum at his bedside is what sets this whole episode in motion. If not, then we have the total coincidence that his life in 1973 features his mum just as his mum arrives in 2006. See, I can be thinky.
-Ivanhoe! He named his cat Ivanhoe! He was four! That is love. Further to that, I like that Ivanhoe recognises adult Sam later on.
-the party. Sam meets Marc Bolan! And Bobby Charlton! And is suitably starstruck each time! And he dances! I am using too many exclamation marks! But it is just that fab!
-Sam's decision that there should be a telly in the pub. I just adore this level of detail and the tongue-in-cheek humour that accompanies it. "A telly? In a pub?" Yes, dears. In a pub. And Sam has hidden carpentering talents, bless him.
-Sam's first visit to his old home, which is almost painful. The very bright, stark, blue-sky lighting of the scene doesn't help any with that sense of dislocation. Sam's good motives get totally misconstrued, as well they might be, and, well, awww. It's very well-written.
-the "honey-trap". I have to say, the moment that girl - Joanie? - comes on, I started thinking that that's not a Manc accent. She's Scouse, dammit. I may have ridiculous difficulty differentiating between American regional accents (I only recently got the difference between American and Canadian accents, for heaven's sake), but thou shalt not mislead me about the place where I grew up. And I was all set to complain. But then she says her friend's coming from Liverpool, and all is good. Heee. The whole scene here is quite good, what with Sam, the mango, and Mexico, and all the rest of it.
-the nightmare. I thought at the time that the nightmare was more nightmarish than they've been so far, because of the sheer level of disconcerting images. I swear I got shades of 9/11 with some of it, and then it all segues a bit into reality, in that beyond-creepy S&M-ish scene at the end.
-Sam wakes up handcuffed to the bed. My mind, she went naughty places. Turns out she was right to. Heee. And so, apparently, did Gene's (and I love how blasé he is when he calls to Annie: "He's in 'ere, love!"). Oh, how I love the BBC. Only they can take a sympathetic, sweet protagonist, drug him up on LSD, make him have kinky sex with handcuffs, have lots of silly jokes made about him and have it all fit seamlessly into the plot. Although, it's quite suggestive that Sam-on-LSD is indistinguishable from normal Sam. He really is having a continuous slight mental breakdown.
-Gene goes to defend Sam! Awww. He makes all that noise about it being entirely his fault, and then goes and defends him anyway.
-all the stuff about Red Rum. I guess we're never going to find out exactly how much mony he made on the Grand National. It's the first thing I'd think of, if I ended up thirty years in the past!
-the bit by the river. I did think, though, that it was a tad predictable - of course she was going to die, and of couse Sam was going to be incredibly depressed about it. I also didn't quite know what to make about the almost desultory fight he has with the other guy whose name I can never remember. It sort of happens, and then nothing else does, although I'm aware I'm making no sense.
-the whole, incredibly surreal, possibly Discworld-inspired (?!) sequence at the butcher's:
"I wouldn't do that."
"Well, I never thought you'd lock a murder suspect into a giant fridge."
(Seriously, this is Discworld: the Pork Futures Warehouse, anyone?)
-the bit where Sam goes for his treacle tart with custard. So, so, heartbreaking. Again with the stark light, the dislocation, underscoring the sense of being too late. The broken photograph of baby Sam with a policeman's helmet might have been too cheesy, but it really wasn't. It's something about the way you never see baby Sam's face - it makes it as though he didn't exist at all. It's hard to explain why it works, but the whole idea really does.
-and, lastly, Sam falling asleep and his mum's voice from 2006. That just broke me. Waaaah. In short, I think this episode suffers a bit from lack of structure. It's not tight enough in places, probably because the plot isn't actually that meaty, but I am willing to forgive, because it's so beautifully written otherwise. Loved it.
Unrelatedly - well, maybe a little relatedly - looks like I'm going to Manchester on Thursday to visit![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
clareyperson and purplerainbow. I don't know what we're going to do, but I leave it in their very capable hands; they're still in the swing of things, because apparently all real universities won't finish for Easter for another three weeks. I've got to get my tickets from Freshfield today or tomorrow, but looks like I'm going at nine in the morning and coming back at about sevenish. This is important, because Pedar is going to London for the day, and my mum is getting upset that her family are leaving her. But, as I have yet to break to her, she's doing on-call nights from Thursday. We will be back before she is. In the meantime, she's continuously staring at her bleep as though she expects it to bite her.
Um, what else? I am still sitting at home doing nothing, as I was when I started writing this ooh, about an hour ago. It's good to be home. Away from the south, my accent has come back. Not that I ever had much of one, so I think I might blame Life On Mars a bit, or Forder. Actually, scratch that, I blame Forder. The man makes me nervous. Put more precisely, he scares the living crap out of me. Therefore for some reason when I'm in tutes with him I revert to four-year-old kindergarten Scouse. It is bizarre. And now I'm here it's really sticking.
Okay, I am boring, I am going away now. I am watching VH1 doing "the magic of 1996" and I know every song. ("How deeeeep is your loooooove?") I don't deserve to live.
I watched episode three yesterday and while I wouldn't say I hated it, it hasn't stuck all that fixedly in my memory, so I'm not entirely sure what to think of it. That said, I'm making no secret of the fact that my favourite bits are the creepy throwbacks (throwforwards?!) to 2006, and episode three had lots of those. (If I may digress a moment, I wish the episodes had titles; I'm being deprived of my greatest geeky pleasure here.) Anyway, back to episode three, I love the deliciously, deliciously sinister fact that the dead man is lying under Sam's kitchen table, or at least where Sam's kitchen table will be. That this isn't satisfactorily explained - I mean, why, of all the places in Manchester, does it have to be under Sam's kitchen table? - can probably go under the long list of ambiguities that need explaining. That said, eeek at the spray bloodstains on the floor, the kitchen cabinets and the cooker and the windows; it's all very effectively done. And more than that, I did like the theme of the dying industries, because it's still relevant even now, sort of. This is why Liverpool was the poorest city in Europe when I was born in it, and in 1973 the trends were already going that way, it was just beginning. It would be blinkered to set a drama in that time and place and not make some mention of it, so kudos to the writers.
Another thing I liked was the dialogue: "My problem would rock your world." Oh, yeah. Similarly, "Gay boy science!"
Also: clowns are scary. Yes they are. And ghostly little BBC2 girls are even scarier.
Moving on to episode four (why no title, siiiigh), waaah. Such perfection. From the beginning, I'd decided that Sam's accent is too well-entrenched for him to have grown up anywhere other than Manchester, and so it seemed fair to expect an episode where he goes to meet himself, or at least, himself at four. And while I wasn't quite right, I think this episode sort of covers the ground. Stuff I liked:
-the set-up, because it too is so ambiguous. You could make a case for 1973 being all a fantasy from this, because arguably, Sam's distant, coma-thick perception of his mum at his bedside is what sets this whole episode in motion. If not, then we have the total coincidence that his life in 1973 features his mum just as his mum arrives in 2006. See, I can be thinky.
-Ivanhoe! He named his cat Ivanhoe! He was four! That is love. Further to that, I like that Ivanhoe recognises adult Sam later on.
-the party. Sam meets Marc Bolan! And Bobby Charlton! And is suitably starstruck each time! And he dances! I am using too many exclamation marks! But it is just that fab!
-Sam's decision that there should be a telly in the pub. I just adore this level of detail and the tongue-in-cheek humour that accompanies it. "A telly? In a pub?" Yes, dears. In a pub. And Sam has hidden carpentering talents, bless him.
-Sam's first visit to his old home, which is almost painful. The very bright, stark, blue-sky lighting of the scene doesn't help any with that sense of dislocation. Sam's good motives get totally misconstrued, as well they might be, and, well, awww. It's very well-written.
-the "honey-trap". I have to say, the moment that girl - Joanie? - comes on, I started thinking that that's not a Manc accent. She's Scouse, dammit. I may have ridiculous difficulty differentiating between American regional accents (I only recently got the difference between American and Canadian accents, for heaven's sake), but thou shalt not mislead me about the place where I grew up. And I was all set to complain. But then she says her friend's coming from Liverpool, and all is good. Heee. The whole scene here is quite good, what with Sam, the mango, and Mexico, and all the rest of it.
-the nightmare. I thought at the time that the nightmare was more nightmarish than they've been so far, because of the sheer level of disconcerting images. I swear I got shades of 9/11 with some of it, and then it all segues a bit into reality, in that beyond-creepy S&M-ish scene at the end.
-Sam wakes up handcuffed to the bed. My mind, she went naughty places. Turns out she was right to. Heee. And so, apparently, did Gene's (and I love how blasé he is when he calls to Annie: "He's in 'ere, love!"). Oh, how I love the BBC. Only they can take a sympathetic, sweet protagonist, drug him up on LSD, make him have kinky sex with handcuffs, have lots of silly jokes made about him and have it all fit seamlessly into the plot. Although, it's quite suggestive that Sam-on-LSD is indistinguishable from normal Sam. He really is having a continuous slight mental breakdown.
-Gene goes to defend Sam! Awww. He makes all that noise about it being entirely his fault, and then goes and defends him anyway.
-all the stuff about Red Rum. I guess we're never going to find out exactly how much mony he made on the Grand National. It's the first thing I'd think of, if I ended up thirty years in the past!
-the bit by the river. I did think, though, that it was a tad predictable - of course she was going to die, and of couse Sam was going to be incredibly depressed about it. I also didn't quite know what to make about the almost desultory fight he has with the other guy whose name I can never remember. It sort of happens, and then nothing else does, although I'm aware I'm making no sense.
-the whole, incredibly surreal, possibly Discworld-inspired (?!) sequence at the butcher's:
"I wouldn't do that."
"Well, I never thought you'd lock a murder suspect into a giant fridge."
(Seriously, this is Discworld: the Pork Futures Warehouse, anyone?)
-the bit where Sam goes for his treacle tart with custard. So, so, heartbreaking. Again with the stark light, the dislocation, underscoring the sense of being too late. The broken photograph of baby Sam with a policeman's helmet might have been too cheesy, but it really wasn't. It's something about the way you never see baby Sam's face - it makes it as though he didn't exist at all. It's hard to explain why it works, but the whole idea really does.
-and, lastly, Sam falling asleep and his mum's voice from 2006. That just broke me. Waaaah. In short, I think this episode suffers a bit from lack of structure. It's not tight enough in places, probably because the plot isn't actually that meaty, but I am willing to forgive, because it's so beautifully written otherwise. Loved it.
Unrelatedly - well, maybe a little relatedly - looks like I'm going to Manchester on Thursday to visit
clareyperson and purplerainbow. I don't know what we're going to do, but I leave it in their very capable hands; they're still in the swing of things, because apparently all real universities won't finish for Easter for another three weeks. I've got to get my tickets from Freshfield today or tomorrow, but looks like I'm going at nine in the morning and coming back at about sevenish. This is important, because Pedar is going to London for the day, and my mum is getting upset that her family are leaving her. But, as I have yet to break to her, she's doing on-call nights from Thursday. We will be back before she is. In the meantime, she's continuously staring at her bleep as though she expects it to bite her. Um, what else? I am still sitting at home doing nothing, as I was when I started writing this ooh, about an hour ago. It's good to be home. Away from the south, my accent has come back. Not that I ever had much of one, so I think I might blame Life On Mars a bit, or Forder. Actually, scratch that, I blame Forder. The man makes me nervous. Put more precisely, he scares the living crap out of me. Therefore for some reason when I'm in tutes with him I revert to four-year-old kindergarten Scouse. It is bizarre. And now I'm here it's really sticking.
Okay, I am boring, I am going away now. I am watching VH1 doing "the magic of 1996" and I know every song. ("How deeeeep is your loooooove?") I don't deserve to live.
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on 2006-03-14 06:01 pm (UTC)Well, I'm from the South of England, and they're pretty distinct to me. Maybe it's a non-British thing. However, while I can do a passable Scouse accent, Manc is beyond me. I blame it on early exposure to Brookie, the Boswells and a sitcom called Help...