Life on Mars starts tonight

Check out "Life on Mars" on BBC America tonight. I would have posted a picture from the series, but Blogger is $&#**#^&$&#

Three reasons to at least watch the first episode:

1) John Simm is the lead, and he's a very likeable actor. I think he's grand. You may recognize him from when he played Bernard Sumner in 24 Hour Party People. He was fantastic in the BBC mini-series "State of Play". I highly recommend keeping an eye out for a repeat airing of this on BBC America or a possible dvd release. John Simm was also in Human Traffic if that helps. He was in a straight-to-dvd/cable movie with Christina Ricci called Miranda. I hate Christina Ricci in that movie. However, Julian Rhind-Tutt from "Keen Eddie" and "Green Wing" was also in the cast, so it's not all bad. John Simm appeared in probably the best episode of "The Canterbury Tales" adaptations with Keeley Hawes and Chiwetel Ejiofor. I think the first time I saw John Simm was in Michael Winterbottom's Wonderland, a very beautiful and sad film, and not in anyway related to the Wonderland starring Val Kilmer as John Holmes.

2) David E. Kelley bought the U.S. rights to "Life on Mars", which means he will be creating a U.S. version very soon. He's going to muck it up. I'm not a huge David E. Kelley fan. I will watch his shows some of the time, because he does have a knack for using interesting character actors. He tends to write outrageous material, and I think a lot of actors are attracted to that, even if it is just a guest spot. Those kinds of roles are fun to play, and get you noticed and possibly nominated for awards. However, I think Kelley always casts too many actors in his shows, and then doesn't know what to do with them. I also think he is more interested in being shocking than being true. He always ruins his own shows.

3) It takes place in 1973, so, you know, good music and fashion...

Sam Tyler (John Simm), a cool, sharp young detective, is working hard to keep the streets of 21st century Manchester safe from crime. But his world is turned upside down when the hunt for a serial killer becomes a personal vendetta after Maya (Archie Panjabi, The Constant Gardener), his girlfriend and colleague, goes missing. Desperately afraid she has been kidnapped by the killer, he sets out to find her, only to become involved in a near-fatal car accident. When he wakes, he finds himself in a different era - 1973. Is this reality, madness or a dream? Sam struggles to understand what is happening to him.

Disoriented and traumatized, 21st century Sam is completely bewildered by his new environment. As all attempts to return to his own time fail, Sam falls back on what he knows best - his job. Each episode features a different case, some of the toughest Sam has ever tried to solve - partly because of what seems like archaic police procedure. This is a world without cell phones, where cops rely on paperwork and memory instead of computers, there's no DNA profiling and what forensics do exist take two weeks to process.

Furthermore, his 1973 colleagues are insensitive, unreconstructed cops who regularly intimidate witnesses and are happy to nail suspects irrespective of whether they have evidence. Sam's new boss is hard-nosed Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister), the antithesis of everything Sam believes in. He gets results by trusting his gut instinct and, all too often, sheer brute force. Most of his team have similar attitudes towards their work including detective Ray Carling (Dean Andrews) who is suspicious of Sam and his 'new-fangled' ideas. At least detective Chris Skelton (Marshall Lancaster, Clocking Off), despite being clueless, is more affable and keen to learn.

The only person in this alien world who reaches out to Sam is a young police officer, Annie Cartwright (Liz White, The Street), an educated and open-minded woman who helps Sam in his quest to find the truth about his new circumstances, as well as battling to lock up the criminals of 1970s Manchester.

In the first episode, it becomes clear to Sam that the killer who is holding Maya in 2006 started his killing spree here and now in the early '70s. Could catching the perpetrator be Sam's key to returning to the future?