Sam going over to the Dark side, in retrospect, is there, but it's another thing that really should have been more visible - I was thrilled, in the pilot, to see him contemplate killing the kid - not that he was going to kill a child, but because the creators seemed to really drop the storyline after that point. His father, in the finale, said that Sam was a monster, or something like that, but we never really see that in the show. Another problem - show, don't tell.

Keitel really wasn't that much of a weak link in the show - I think he did the character pretty well. I was less happy with Annie Norris throughout the entire show - she paled in comparison to Annie Cartwright, and her promotion at the end of the show was a weak footnote with nothing behind it.

Finally that stupid space ship. The writers seemed to have absolutely no clue about interstellar travel. First, you don't take the whole ship down to the surface - this is why we have a lander - it worked very well with Apollo, and any martian mission will likely take along the same components. There was no time lag between transmissions (I know this is nitpicky, but it's bothering me). Plus, they were walking around as if there was gravity. A lot of these things could have been done easily.

 Reply

First, no one was every really in danger, no one was ever really saved. Sam didn't correct history, like in the British series. Sam didn't sacrifice his future to save his friends in the past.

Only going 13 episodes I think this ending works, but if had gone on a few years I would have felt very cheated if everything turned out to be a dream. But that aside:

Some of the characters had scenes that Sam didn't see. Remember that episode where Annie becomes partners with Ray for a day? Sam has no idea what her day is like, why are we seeing it if its only in his brain?

Also, Annie saves Sam a couple of times, including in the finale. She is back at the police station piecing together clues, etc. Again Sam isn't there to experience it. Are we to believe Annie is another part of Sam's brain coming to rescue him?

A much better way to end it would be to have the 2008 Sam wake up on the spaceship and have him do a stint in the future. He would be the socially backward misfit then. We could not only see how far we've come as a society, but how far we still have to go.

 Reply

It was nice to hear "Life is a Rock" again; I've always liked that song, though I prefer the Tracey Ullman version. It fit in very well with the episode (and entire series).

 Reply

My review is here: [jeditrilobite.wordpress.com]

 Reply

I'm disappointed by the ending, but not as much as I would have been had I invested 5-6 years in the show. They were starting to develop the characters so well - especially his relationship with Annie and then poof, it never was. It's the Bobby Ewing Ending.

I'd rather they left it at the kiss, or him hanging up the phone, or even him hugging Hunt. Any of those would have been better. Then again, we'd all be complaining that they ripped off The Sopranos. :)

 Reply

Here's my take: I think the reason Sam and Alex both end up with Gene Hunt in various time periods is that Hunt is in a coma as well (in the present). Not sure why people keep ending up experiencing Hunt's life with him, but that's my theory.

It's Gene whose coma life people are gravitating towards. Maybe he's in a nearby hospital room. I dunno.

 Reply

Also also, Sam is and always has been the main character/focus of the US version as opposed to Gene being ditto in the UK one.

 Reply

I know some people are whining about the "all a dream" part, but face it -- so was the original!

This one actually made more sense -- the details were so correct b/c the computer was keeping track of trivia, and not Sam's brain. Plus all the little weirdnesses are wrapped up neatly.

I thought they were gonna go with returning to 2008 to find Annie was Sam's boss or something -- which they kinda faked out with the 2010 ending.

This is better than if they'd done a cliffhanger at Sam deciding to stay and never gotten to do anything with it.

The details of the 2035 sequence are very nice when you watch them the second time through and can pay attention.

I give them the cheat of talking to Earth real-time b/c you can't bore the audience waiting for minutes round-trip as they chat with home.

Life On Mars, indeed.

 Reply

They wanted 7 years of this. A 4 minute wrap up of "it was all a virtual reality!" would've been fucking insane.

But one concise season? I dunno, for some reason that seems more...okay. Still though, I can't help but think anything the show was trying to say rings completely hollow now that it turns out none of it had any consequence at all. Was it really their plan all along to have the ending be something that completely renders everythin that came before it totally inconsequential? Like, this was all about Sam reconciling with his dad, who was really his boss anyways? I mean, we don't even know why Sam was so fucking mad at Gene that he tripped through time trying to fix his relationship, yet still could go on a space mission with him to Mars anyways no problem.

Like, seriously, I feel like there's gotta be a whole 'nother show explaining why the fuck I should care about the characters at the end of this show!

When he wakes up and his whole experience almost totally had zero fucking effect on him and he instantly remembered, "oh yea, I'm on a space flight to mars, duh! Silly me." how am I supposed to care?!

What would've been better is that, the final final scene is everything was a fakeout and it's him still in a coma and it turns out he's still trapped in his mind. That way, you get your explanation for everything, consequences are in tact in some way, but he's forever doomed to loop through time. Something less hopeful and doesn't wrap it all up in a cheesy bow.

Also, why the hell would there be a father/son mission to Mars where the father is in his 60s? I would think there would be way better candidates for this incredibly important mission. Who woulda thunk? HARVEY KEITEL IN SPACE. Lol. I give the ending points for pure balls, but seriously, what the fuck guys.

 Reply

Although I'm disappointed to see that they never did learn to use the 70s music effectively. What's with all the "look at those cavemen go!" lyric quotes, and then never actually playing "Life on Mars"??

It looks like they would've actually explored the Hyde thing more if the show had lasted, which would have been nice - that was underused in the British.

 Reply