SciFi Stream

As series finales go, Life on Mars delivered pretty big surprise in its closing moments that, depending on one’s perspective, was either very rewarding, or huge dramatic cheat. For me, it was a little of both.

As a fan of the series, I did not want to see it end, and while the last few episodes lacked the strength of some of the earlier ones, I wrote it off as the writers being forced to shut down quickly. This episode was not one of the better ones the series had to offer. In fact, up until the ending, it was largely uneventful.

This one again focused on Sam’s mother and reintroduced his father. Sam is told he must do three things to return to 2008 (or 2009 by now), one of which is save himself. Of course, this news comes as his younger self has been kidnapped by his father Vic. Older …

Life on Mars lived up to its name this week. After setting up an apparent tragedy at the end of last week’s episode, the tragedy simply didn’t materialize. Instead, it was pretty much business as usual in the 125, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

If two people get shot, and nobody is there to watch, did it really happen? Such is the dilemma that confronts fans of the soon to be departed Life on Mars. With an audience dwindling by the week, only the diehards are left – and if they made it to the end of this episode without falling to sleep, they were treated to a pretty shocking ending.While I love this series, the last two episodes have been quite disappointing. Working undercover, Sam works his way into a crime ring, befriending Jimmy McManus. As fate would have it, McManus happens to be the brother of Sam’s former babysitter Colleen, which leads to a reunion with his mother. I’ve not been fond of the episodes focusing on Sam’s mother. Of course this territory needs to be crossed at some point, but the whole dynamic just never seems …

Just when I started to lament the loss of this series, they go and deliver a trash episode like this one that, had it been more representative of the show, would have justified ABC’s decision to cancel it. By far, this was the weakest episode of the season, featuring cheap sex gags, stereotypes, and a pretty lame mystery. As regular readers know, I really enjoy this series, and one bad episode doesn’t make the whole series bad. This show really suffers when it throws characterization out the window and simply plugs in cookie cutter stereotypes: a philandering pilot, horny stewardesses, an underwear collector, a lookalike, and an angry wife. The combination was entirely predictable and completely unbelievable at the same time. However, the show officially jumped the shark with the lame inclusion …

Just as Sam Tyler is getting to accept that he might as well start living in 1973, the brass at ABC go and cancel the series. Who says life is fair? I’ve been critical of this series when it has deserved it, but I’ve heaped praise on it much more often. It’s definitely a show that deserved a better fate than cancellation.This week, the writers finally tie in some real history of which Sam is most likely familiar: the Ali-Norton fight and terrorist attacks by The Weather Underground. The latter is handled in a largely non-political fashion. I had feared that this would be a politically charged episode, but it really wasn’t. A series of bombings kill off Hunt’s friends. A radical female professor is a suspect, and it turn out that she is indeed guilty, but not because of any social or political …

There was good news and bad news when Andrew Nemec picked up the phone earlier this week. It was ABC sharing word that Nemec’s American version of “Life On Mars” had been canceled. While that was hard enough to take, Nemec did get good news: they still had a chance to end the series without leaving its loyal fan base hanging. “We’ve felt from the beginning that if the show wasn’t going to get its legs for a second season, nothing would have been more of a gift from the network and the studio than to give us the opportunity to find the creative closure a lot of shows don’t get,” Nemec told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s all a bit sad, but it doesn’t come without its closure and finality.” “Life On Mars” is based on a British series of the same name that starred “Doctor Who’s” …

David Bowie will have to find another show to haunt. “Life On Mars,” which had a pretty solid start for ABC, is finishing on a low note as the network has made it clear it won’t order any additional episodes past the initial 17. The early decision will allow producers to give the fans who have stuck around to see Sam Tyler — a 2008 cop traversing in 1973 — find closure. “We felt it was the right thing to do for the producers and the fans and creatively,” said Steve McPherson, ABC Entertainment group president, to Television Week. “Life On Mars” — a remake of the short-form British serial starring John Simm in the main role — premiered Oct. 9 to strong ratings with Jason O’Mara in the Sam Tyler role, earning a 7.7/13. It was up against another series premiere that night, “Eleventh …

Seeing a good series like this slowly die on the vine is quite depressing. I really have enjoyed this show, and this episode was a typical of what we’ve seen this year from Life on Mars: a decent storyline, some humorous interaction among the cast members, and just enough supernatural elements to keep the show grounded in its science fiction premise. When a series is setting the ratings on fire, that could be seen as a good thing, but Life on Mars is hemorrhaging viewers on a weekly basis. A second season is extremely remote at best, and with the viewership decline in free fall, the plug could be pulled any day now. This was a solid episode with perhaps the best procedural mystery of the season so far. A newspaper columnist is murdered, and since he had written negatively about Hunt, there …

“American Idol” seemed to be the way many viewers are going Wednesday nights, and maybe that’s having a toll on “Lost.” Or then again, maybe it’s too science-fiction for the masses. Many genre shows are struggling to stay afloat right now, and while “Lost” is keeping a mostly stable audience, it’s still not pulling in the audiences it once did, even last year. “Lost” earned a 5.9 rating/9 share Wednesday according to Fast National ratings from Nielsen Media Research. That was down more than 9 percent from the previous week, and finished behind both Fox’s karaoke contest and “Criminal Minds” on CBS. “Lost” did finish ahead of “Life” on NBC, which managed just a 3.3/5, according to Zap2it. There was no new “Knight Rider” available for NBC, which went with a “Biggest Loser” …

It doesn’t take a genius to see the writing on the wall. With an audience dwindling by the week, the best Life On Mars fans can realistically hope for is that the series will air all of its episodes and come to some sort of satisfying conclusion. This episode seemed to move in that direction, at least a little bit. Here, a councilman is picked up, but he, like Sam, has come from the future: 2009 to be exact. But before Sam can learn much, the man is shot, in the middle of the precinct no less, and in his dying breath, reveals that he was killed because he found the way home. After that, the procedural elements kick in as everyone tries to identify the shooter. This part of the episode is a bit overly simplistic. It was obvious who the shooter was, and it didn’t take a Mensa scholar to realize …

With ratings in free fall and the audience diminishing by the week, Life on Mars needed a solid episode that, at the very least, would hold on to its regular viewers. Instead, the tenth episode was a cliche-riddled, out of sync mess that has me convinced this ship is sinking fast. As a procedural, Life on Mars is simply an average show. When everything is working properly, it’s the characters, particularly Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt, drive the show. This one focused on the life of a rock star (cliche #1), which allow ultimately leads to the death of a beautiful groupie (cliche #2) A star struck Chris fills the role of the bumbling cop (cliche #3) rather poorly, making me long for the days of Barney Fife. Anyway, Hunt’s frisky daughter (cliche #4) reappears and seduces Sam by wearing nothing …

Looks like “Life On Mars” was good while it lasted. The remake of a British miniseries on ABC fell to a series low Wednesday night, continuing a steady decline that started since it moved nights following “Lost.” “Life On Mars” earned a 3.3 rating/5 share, according to Fast National ratings from Nielsen Media Research, an 11 percent audience drop from last week, and a 57 percent freefall since its highly publicized debut. When it aired Thursday nights against “Eleventh Hour” on CBS, “Life On Mars” averaged a 6.0/10 and an audience Stability Index Rating of 77.9. Since it moved to Wednesdays, in what some have said is a cursed lead-out spot from “Lost,” “Life On Mars” has fallen to a 3.7/6, a drop of 38 percent. It finished last in the time slot behind “CSI: NY” on CBS and “Law …