U.S. Life on Mars, episodes 12,13, and 14

Continuing on with the observations.  I'll be finished with the series shortly, and soon I'll have a wrap-up post as well.

Episode 12:

Tony Crane doesn’t own a casino anymore, but an art gallery.  Not a big deal, but since the character of Tony was such a standout in the original, it’s really jarring.  We have the return of Harry Woolf too, so I wonder how close that’ll veer to the original as well in regards to his plotline.

Episode 13:

A pub called Glenister’s just got blown up.  Not a laughing matter, but I am.  Totally not coincidence, that choice of pub name, which makes me happy.  Good to know you guys aren’t forgetting your roots!

They’ve also nailed the Band of Brothers feeling that was present in the original series with this episode.  The only problem with this is that it’s making the WTF ending come even more out of the blue, because these plot devices that they’re tossing in feel like they’re veering closer to an ending that would be more along the lines of the original.  Not exactly the same, depending on how they wanted to initially define this world, but using that idea (I’d be more specific, but I don’t want to spoil the original Life on Mars for any new readers out there).  I want to know if they knew they were going to get canceled at this point and had to decide which ending to use.

Episode 14:

I want Sam’s car.  Yellow muscle machine with black stripes down the hood? *drools*

Sorry, U.K. version, this is one area where the U.S. version wins hands down.  Whatever car that is, it’s a lot cooler than DCI Hunt’s Ford Cortina.

(According to TV Tropes, the car in question is a Chevelle SS.  My dad would have a field day with that one…)

Aaaaaannnnnd we’ve got an episode set on an airplane with flash cuts to outer space.  Methinks they’ve decided on their ending now…

It’s the key party/undercover girls episode.  Shoulda seen this one coming – and let’s see if I’m right at guessing who the killer is too.  At least they’ve still got Sam going undercover to the party with her instead of Chris or something…  Sam needs to ditch the fake moustache, however.  It looks better on Jason O’Mara than it would on John Simm, but still.  Fake rugs like that are never good.

And it’s Gene and the hooker!  I was waiting for that, hee.

U.S. Life on Mars, episodes 6 & 10

Leaving the computer open as I watch television means that I end up taking notes as I go along.  I'd like to say that they're highly academic observations as to the foreshadowing of the ending, but what's that they say about the best laid plans?  Here are my notes on episodes six and ten of the U.S. Life on Mars:

 

Episode 6:

No Windy.  This isn’t a bad thing.  I miss Nelson.  

Love the Moonwalking gag.  Sam’s earned the nickname Spaceman – another clue?  

 Aside from that and a change of setting from a news office to a hospital, this episode seems almost exactly like one from the original first series – despite the fact that there were elements in the episode prior to this that were lifted from an episode in the original second series...

Okay, scratch that, bad guy’s motives have totally changed from the original.

Episode 10:

Is that Kate from White Collar there?

Plot’s starting to diverge from the original by now.  This isn’t a bad thing – stories that work in 1973 Manchester may not always work in 1973 NYC.  Although I’m not sure I’m a fan of the idea of Gene Hunt having a daughter.  Seems like one too many bad fanfics has come to life with that one.

Oops.  Kate’s been abducted by aliens. 

The “Paranormal” division of the FBI?!?!  Seriously?  I don’t know whether to facepalm or giggle with the thought of nostalgia (says she who just rewatched eight seasons of the X-Files not even a month ago…).

Three daughters, Hunt? *sigh*  Veering into badfic territory here.

Ooh, “Starman”.  I love that song.

*points* St. Christopher medal!  The Sam in the original series had one of these, never pointed out but we all knew he had one, so it’s nice to see it make a return here.

Knight Life, Update 3

I have a tendency to use my books for storage.  Often times I'll shove pamphlets or little bits of paper in there, usually with little scribbled notes on them.  So I shouldn't have been surprised to find this in my copy of Knight Life:

I'm pretty sure this business card has something to do with a midnight showing of Rocky Horror about seven years back.  Even if this wasn't in the book to begin with, it makes a strange sort of sense, as one of the girls I went to that show with was the one who told me about this book in the first place.  I'll talk more about Ayesha when I get to the Discworld Series, as she's the one who enlightened me about the great Terry Pratchett in the first place.  Twenty-four books later, not counting the great Good Omens, yeah, it's safe to say I've become a fangirl.

Anyway, back to Knight Life.  I'm currently on page 216, and still struggling.  It's the female characters that are doing me in, I think.  Arthur's great as a man who's out of his time and attempting to adapt to a modern world, and the youthful Merlin is great.  Merlin's always been one of my favorite characters in the Arthurian mythos, so I end up feeling a bit proprietary towards him.  But Morgana and Gwen...Morgana seems one-dimensionally villainous so I have a hard time feeling any sort of sympathy towards her.  As the website TV Tropes says (which I am not linking to for the readers' sanity.  If you want to search it out, on your own head be it.  You will lose days to that website, I guarantee) she's doing it "For the Evulz."  I feel like I want a little more motivation from her in a modern work.  A one-dimensional style character may work in a fairy tale, but not as much in a modern novel.

And Gwen.  Oh, Gwen's trying, I think, but she still frustrates me.  Currently she's swooned in the middle of a fancy dinner.  But still, I will persevere.

Spring is coming...

After the New England winter from hell, I love seeing these little signs of spring finally poking their heads out.  It's a glorious day outside, I don't blame them one bit for wanting to turn their heads up to the sun and following it all day.

All of these were taken right outside my apartment building.  Needless to say, it's a lovely sight to walk out and see.

Knight Life, Update 2 and Episode 4, Life on Mars US

I've finally hit page 160 in Knight Life, and I'm still having trouble getting deeply into the book.  I'll read a few pages here and there, but I'm not finding myself hunkered down for hours in the evening with a low light burning until the wee hours so I can finish before I go to sleep.  I spent many days like this in middle school, reading late into the night when I should have been sleeping by the glowing blue and pink neon light of my telephone (my only excuse for the phone was that it was the mid-nineties).  I'm going to try and make some progress tonight, and with any luck I'll have a more complete wrap-up of the book in a few days.

In more entertaining news, I made it to episode four of the U.S. Life on Mars.  There will be some spoilers for the episode ahead, so if you're trying to stay away from them before watching, turn back now...

This should have been my first clue as to seeing the WTF ending coming.  Let me see if I can recount my reaction from the first time I saw this scene, way back in the fall of 2008.

Sam Tyler: "Hey, Annie, would you mind getting Rose (Sam’s mother) a cup of coffee?"

Me: Hey, come on, her name’s supposed to be Ruth! (Sam’s mom’s name in the original series)

*pause*

Me: Waitasec…  Rose?  Rose Tyler?  SERIOUSLY?

*cue cracking up and me sending text messages to my Whofan friends*

For those of you who don’t know, Rose Tyler was a major character in the 2005 revival of Doctor Who.  She was also the character that Sam Tyler in the UK series was named after (one of the writers of the show asked his kid for a last name for the character of Sam.  The kid tossed out Tyler after the DW character and the rest is history).  Given that Doctor Who has been covering space and time travel since 1963, I’d say that’s a pretty big clue to where they decided to take the ending.  And I’m an idiot for missing it the first time around, especially considering my great love for Doctor Who.  I have my own TARDIS.  'Nuff said.

So is Windy supposed to be a replacement for Nelson then?  She’s fun, but she’s no Nelson.  Nelson had some great hidden depths that peeked out occasionally like the Mancunian accent slip-ups.  Not seeing that with Windy so far.

Life on Mars vs. Life on Mars U.S. version

I’m taking a divergence from the Bookshelf Project here, but since it’s my blog I can talk about whatever I want.  And one of those things I like to talk about is TV shows.

Before I say anything else, let it be known here that I am a massive fan of the original (U.K.) Life on Mars and anything related to it: the soundtrack, the sequel show Ashes to Ashes, so on and so forth.  I thought that the stories were amazing and doing things in the plot that really pushed boundaries yet played off of cliché at the same time.  Not to mention the absolutely crackling chemistry between John Simm and Phillip Glenister.  And just the sheer wonder that is Gene Hunt.  So the original version will always hold the place of honor in my heart.

However, I had the opportunity to acquire the U.S. version of Life on Mars for dirt cheap, so I decided to buy the whole series and give it a shot.  I’d seen a few episodes of the show back when it was on TV (searching out anything that relates to the original, as I have a tendency to do) and caught the ending that defines ‘WTF’ perfectly.  But being related to the wonderful original, I almost feel like I would be a bad fangirl if I didn't give the new show a chance.  So why not?  I’m hoping that the show actually doesn’t end up being just a blatant copy of the U.K. edition.  I’m about ten minutes into the first episode and they’ve even had identical film cuts to the original so far. 

Life on Mars U.S., I’m willing to give you a chance.  Don’t let me down.  You have the same amount of episodes as the original, so let’s see what you do with that time.  Give me a reason to believe that you actually planned out that insanity defining ending.

Brace yourselves, it’s going to be a bumpy ride…

Progress Update: Knight Life, by Peter David

After about a week of reading I'm currently on page 82 of Knight Life, by Peter David.  Usually when I read I'm further into a book or finished by this point, so the question must be raised as to why it's taking me so long.  The book isn't a bad one, so I'm not sure why I'm hesitating with this story.  The plot's a fun one: Arthur's returned (although it doesn't seem like the time of England's greatest need, as per the legends) and has decided to run for Mayor of New York City, Merlin's de-aged to the point of looking like an eight-year-old, there's a woman there who may or may not be the reincarnation of Guinevere, the Lady of the Lake's stuck in a pond in central park, and Morgan LeFay is planning something nasty.  David's writing is solid as well; he's a good story teller and the plotline moves smoothly.

Yet I find myself having trouble getting into it.  Maybe it's because out of all of the characters in Arthurian Legend, something that I'm fairly familiar with (to a point where I once did what I called the bargain basement Arthurian Legends tour of England), I despise the character of Guinevere.  Partly because she cheats on the king, and I suspect also because of a book I read many years ago, one of my first ventures into Arthuriana as a young teenager, that had an interesting spin on the character of Morgan LeFay.  I don't remember the title, but I know it had something about the number three in there.  Third Magic?  Third Circle?  Something along those lines...whatever the title was, the twist was interesting enough that I still remember the essence of that book over fifteen years later.

And maybe that's why I'm having a bit of trouble with this book.  For all of the updates in setting, having Arthur in the middle of NYC in the early 21st Century, I feel that all of the characters are still in the same old roles that they play in legend.  Morgan's still evil, and Merlin's still fighting with her.  I guess I'm looking for more of a twist, something to really turn around my perceptions of the old stories.  But I'm going to finish the story.  I'm having enough fun that I want to see where it goes, and I'm hoping that I don't regret putting my trust in the author to tell me the story that I want to see.  Who knows, maybe Guinevere will redeem herself in this incarnation.  Now that would be a great twist!