A few months back I watched the pre-air for ABC’s first attempt at translating Life on Mars to our shores. It was a rough experience, mildly ameliorated by the participation of Colm Meany and the lovely Rachelle Lefevre. ((I’m convinced this redheaded siren is going to take her sly, knowing smile and husky voice to great heights someday. This was not to be that day.)) My feeling at the time was that Jason O’Mara – another in the long line of British Empire expats clogging up our airwaves – was a black hole from which not even the charisma of those around him could escape. My first thought was that he was too focused on his ‘R’s to worry about acting, but Ireland’s mostly rhotic. Some other complexity of the Amercan accent, then.
Seriously. He was bad. It didn’t help that I was comparing him to John Simm who brought a lot of intelligence and wit to to his original version of the character. It helped him even less that Meany played Gene Hunt much quieter and calmer than Philip Glenister and still blew O’Mara off the screen.
So when LoM was retooled I figured for sure O’Mara was going to get tossed aside for an American who could really sink his teeth into the character and stand up alongside a great character actor like–
Oh. Everyone and everything else was tossed? Meany, Lefevre, David E. Kelley? Gone. The LA setting? Gone. But Jason O’Mara and his leather jacket stayed.
New showrunners moved the show to NYC in order to harken to the great period cop shows set there like…Kojak? I really can’t think of another cop show set in New York in 1973. LA – as in the David E. Kelley version – or SF would have been a better choice for nostalgia. But owing to the city-envy Angelinos suffer, ((Rightly.)) they selected the Big Apple. And as disappointed as I was to see Meany and Lefevre out, I can’t say Harvey Keitel and Gretchen Mol weren’t excellent additions to the cast. Maybe they could keep a few stray charismatrons ((Massless particles of charisma, natch.)) from sinking into O’Mara’s gravity well. And who knows? A few extra months with a dialect coach might have helped him have an Eliza Doolittle moment.
So it was with low expectations and some trepidation that I set the Tivo to get LoM tonight.
- The first pre-air was crap.
- I really liked the original.
- I think Jason O’Mara should stick to drinkin’ fookin’ Guiness in his local fookin’ poob.
- Gretchen Mol, I love ya, but sometimes I’m reminded of your epic wet blanket in Rounders. It’s not your fault; you played Jo so perfectly you made me hate you for a few years.
- For all D.E.K.’s faults, he’s still a good writer. Not so sure about the October Road guy.
- Oh, and I’d heard rumors about the WTC showing up just a bit too much.
I made it to the end of the teaser before I stopped the recording. Dead.
Don’t get me wrong, I was going along with them up to the teaser out. I thought it was funny that Sam was driving a Jeep, just like the original. I shook my head in disbelief when they brought in the identical twin with a gambling problem. I was comparing New Coke to Coke Classic when Maya and Sam were talking about meeting her folks. All in all, I thought they were doing a journeyman’s ((Not Journeyman, the NBC show about a time-traveling American portrayed by a Scot.)) job of redoing the show. I figured it might be okay. I thought, “hey, it’s not the same but it might be good enough for TheWife who can’t deal with the Mancunian accent.”
Then they did it.
You know what? Fuck you ABC. Fuck you ABC and the writers and the director and anyone else who thought the only possible way to show Sam that he was back in time was to show him the WTC. Because the clothes and the 8-track and the car weren’t enough?
It’s been a few years now, so I might be wrong about this detail, but in the wonderful British version, Sam sees a billboard announcing a new freeway. Not a freeway that would be blown up killing thousands, just your average, run of the mill, goddamn road on which Brits drive fast and on the wrong side.
It’s a cheap shortcut, and it implies far greater depth to your piddling little entertainment than is warranted.
In his review of the new pilot, Alan Sepinwall said,
the towers threaten to overwhelm much of the action. Making them a part of the storyline — Sam tries to prevent 9/11 from 28 years in the past — would be an awkward misstep, and yet just showing them without comment makes the rest of the show seem less relevant than it probably wants to be.
I can’t imagine anything less relevant than seeing Sam and Annie dance a pas de deux while he feels remorse over Maya, less relevant than bickering with Gene Hunt like an old married couple, less relevant than whining about DNA and chains of evidence custody and procedure, when those towers cast long shadows over his head. Really? If you were dropped back in NYC in 1973 and your first sight was of those magnificent towers, straining for the heavens, wouldn’t you hop on a plane to Saudi Arabia and kill yourself the 16-year-old son of a wealthy businessman?
It appears this crappy season continues on its record-setting run of fruitlessness. Let’s hope the midseason shows can redeem this year in the smallest possible measure.