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Life on Mars, go and download it, now (or, if in the UK it's being repeated late Monday night/early Tuesday morning atm). Honestly, it will pay off.
It's intelligent, thought provoking, genuinely dramatic, moving, funny and slashy as hell. *g* Yet another winner from the BBC and they've just shown the final episode of series one. I imagine it'll be a little while before it's ready for download but the whole series/season one should be available shortly.
The premise? Present-day copper Detective Chief Inspector Sam Tyler, is hit by a car and wakes up in...1973. He's now a Detective Inspector to Gene Hunt's Detective Chief Inspector and the relationship between the two of them is well slashy. *g* And that's just one of the slashy relationships. There are others. Not to mention a very lovely, sweet potential het love interest. Except that she's worried he's a bit mad, you see. Sam doesn't know if he's in a coma, insane, or has travelled back in time.
The 1973 date was picked very carefully. Back then the British police forces were not perhaps all that they could be. The series is set in Manchester, but I'm sure they weren't any better than the other forces in 1973. For example, certain members of the City of London police (who are known as being pretty much models of propriety, even a bit boring, nowadays and who only police the City, or the Square Mile, the financial heart of London - the rest of London is policed by the Metropolitan Police) were done for setting up a load of blags down in South London. The only reason they were caught is because the armed robbers who actually carried out the robberies got fed-up at the amount of the take that the City boys were demanding and shopped them. And then there's the Met... And the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad (turned out a large percentage of the crime was being committed by them) etc. Coppers were on the take, routinely fitted suspects up, denied access to solicitors (lawyers) etc.
By 1974/1975 work was underway to clean up the police forces round the country and a lot of reforms were implemented that make it much more difficult for corrupt police to prosper, not to mention that there are now strict custody time limits, routine access to legal advice, all interviews are recorded etc. But in 1973 pretty much anything went, as Sam learns to his horror.
Go watch. I don't think you'll regret it.
It's intelligent, thought provoking, genuinely dramatic, moving, funny and slashy as hell. *g* Yet another winner from the BBC and they've just shown the final episode of series one. I imagine it'll be a little while before it's ready for download but the whole series/season one should be available shortly.
The premise? Present-day copper Detective Chief Inspector Sam Tyler, is hit by a car and wakes up in...1973. He's now a Detective Inspector to Gene Hunt's Detective Chief Inspector and the relationship between the two of them is well slashy. *g* And that's just one of the slashy relationships. There are others. Not to mention a very lovely, sweet potential het love interest. Except that she's worried he's a bit mad, you see. Sam doesn't know if he's in a coma, insane, or has travelled back in time.
The 1973 date was picked very carefully. Back then the British police forces were not perhaps all that they could be. The series is set in Manchester, but I'm sure they weren't any better than the other forces in 1973. For example, certain members of the City of London police (who are known as being pretty much models of propriety, even a bit boring, nowadays and who only police the City, or the Square Mile, the financial heart of London - the rest of London is policed by the Metropolitan Police) were done for setting up a load of blags down in South London. The only reason they were caught is because the armed robbers who actually carried out the robberies got fed-up at the amount of the take that the City boys were demanding and shopped them. And then there's the Met... And the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad (turned out a large percentage of the crime was being committed by them) etc. Coppers were on the take, routinely fitted suspects up, denied access to solicitors (lawyers) etc.
By 1974/1975 work was underway to clean up the police forces round the country and a lot of reforms were implemented that make it much more difficult for corrupt police to prosper, not to mention that there are now strict custody time limits, routine access to legal advice, all interviews are recorded etc. But in 1973 pretty much anything went, as Sam learns to his horror.
Go watch. I don't think you'll regret it.
