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Contains spoilers for all of Life on Mars.
“I went someplace, Mum. And every day, I woke up in that place. And I told myself, ‘I’m alive.’ And I was. In some ways, more than I’ve ever been. You know, a barman... a barman once told me that you know when you’re alive, because you feel, and you know when you’re not, because you don’t feel anything. I made a promise, Mum. I made a promise to someone who I care about very much.”
Sam hears on the radio that cause of his prolonged coma is a brain tumour, but a surgeon, Frank Morgan, will operate on it if they think he’s strong enough. In 1973, DCI Frank Morgan tells Sam that if he can provide information that proves Gene is corrupt, he can return to Hyde. Sam is left with a choice between his chance to go back home and the place, people and woman he’s come to love.
This final episode actually contains very little of the 1973 characters other than Annie. They all get their own small moments, but Sam disagrees with Gene’s behaviour here in a way that he hasn’t really done for a while. It works in the context of the story, but it would have been nice to have a moment of accord between Gene and Sam to assure the viewers that Annie isn’t the only thing drawing Sam to 1973. Still, we’ve had more than enough scenes like that in the past to make up for it.
Because, in the end, this becomes more about Sam and Annie, which I can very much live with – Liz White has been consistently brilliant as the WPC who tries to understand Sam even when he’s being his most bizarre. The scene in Sam’s bedroom was beautifully played by White and John Simm, who makes a convincing romantic lead here, and her pleas to him in the tunnel were marvellous.
There were lovely little details when Sam returned to 2006 (like his hospital room being the mysterious Hyde 2612, and his mother sounding so much like Joanne Froggatt) but it also worked overall, as well: the washed-out colour palette, Sam staying in a shirt and tie the whole time, the lack of dialogue and noise. The fact that he returned to 1973 by jumping off a building, the way he was planning to get back to 2006 in the very first episode, brought the whole thing full circle masterfully.
I loved the sense that at the end that, even after the test card girl turned off the screen, these adventures would continue, unseen: Ray will always be a bit awful; Chris will continue say endearingly stupid things; Annie will repeatedly outsmart them all; and, most of all, Sam and Gene will never stop arguing, but they’ll work together brilliantly, anyway. That, for me, was the biggest triumph of all.
Bravo, Life on Mars. You were pretty darn amazing.
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