Sam Taylor's (John Simm) world has turned upside down. Just minutes after his girlfriend and co-worker was kidnapped, he was in a car accident and fell into a coma, and when he woke up, he found himself in a car.
The British TV series Life on Mars, a BTA and International Emmy Award winner , premiered on British Broadcasting Corporation in January 2006. The series is a sci-fi (especially time travel) theme and a cop film, and the main character is Sam Tyler (John Simm), the Chief Inspector of Manchester Police. He traveled back to 1973 because of a car accident in 2006, where he met another protagonist of the film, Chief Inspector Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) of the Manchester and Salford Police Force Criminal Investigation Department, and became his One of his detectives. Throughout the series, various cultural differences appear in front of Tyler, most notably in the way he and his colleagues handle cases. A mystery carries through the whole series, that is: Did Tyler really travel back to the past? Or is it that he was in a coma in 2006 due to a car accident, and everything was just a dream in his coma? Or is he simply a psychopath in 1973?
At the end of the first season, Sam meets his 33-year-old father in an attempt to get things back to normal by keeping him, but he is disappointed. Sam will continue to search for the truth in the second season, and the end of this season will also give an account of Sam's time journey. Is he in a coma, crazy, or is he really back in the past? And what will happen to his relationship with policewoman Annie Cartwright?
From initial struggles to compromises, Sam Tyler has grown accustomed to old-fashioned technology and an old-school attitude to life. He believes that as long as he can find his way to the past, he can also return to his original home.
The show is named after David Bowie's song "Life on Mars?", which plays a vital role in the film. When Sam was in a car accident in 2006, his iPod was playing the song, and when he woke up in 1973, the tape in the car was playing it. Actor John Simm described the style of the show as somewhere between Back to the Past and Tiger Wings. The show is a tribute to traditional gangster films. Through postmodern techniques and techniques of the 1970s, the film successfully portrays a bewildered time traveler who takes a traditional and modern journey into a one-of-a-kind show.
