» Life on Mars (US) Options

[charmingaussie]

I have just found out what everyone already realised, and that is ABC were worried that after such a long break and with a new timeslot the potential new viewers would not know what was going on if they screened the actual episode 8...which followed on from the mid season cliffhanger, so they decided to screen episode 11 instead. I believe that next week will be the actual episode 8, and then the following week will be episode 12 which will follow on from last night's episode.

So ABC's logic was...to risk losing the 8-9 million viewers they had before the mid season finale in hope of gaining new viewers out of Lost by scheduling a completely stand alone episode that was unrelated to the cliffhanger episode. Then, they feel confident enough that the new viewers that are now hooked on the generic slapstick parody of a 70s crime show they saw for the first time and the existing viewers, who although pissed off, decide to stick with the show, will tune in the following week when they finally air the continuing episode of the cliffhanger. Because, you know, seeing Sam go down to a basement for no particular reason...and also having him recovering from a gunshot wound that new viewers never saw happen (if that's what happens in this episode), will now make perfect sense to all the new viewers, now that they've seen one stand alone episode! ABC's logic continues with the assumption that the now confused new viewers will stick around for the following week when they continue on from the first episode they saw. So in the end...they should have a heap of new and existing viewers! I'm sure the programers at ABC had a lengthy discussion where this decision made perfect sense. They would have seen it as a sneaky plan with a win/win for everyone.

They should have made a "catch-up" promo with the emphasis on the time travel mystery part of the show to be played during Lost...because that is exactly what Lost is, and it would appeal to the Lost audience. Marketing this show as a procedural crime show set in the 1970's and fogetting about the time travel mystery, when it is already up against 2 established crime procedurals in the timeslot is ridiculous. Also, any new viewer who tuned in expecting to see that type of show, would wonder why 2 tiny little robots appeared out of the bodies of 2 characters and then disappeared.

I hope we get to see a conclusion before it is yanked off air.

[DecInveigleObf]

Final Numbers for LoM:

Life on Mars (58 minutes)
- 6.220 million viewers
- 3.9/6 HH
- 2.1/6 A18-49

Lost's 2 minute overrun removed, it's even worse... Look on the bright side, the last episode, aired before Xmas had 48% retention in the viewers, and 40% retention in the demo. Out of Lost, the retention went up 55% in viewers, and 43% in the demo.

[goldil]

the best was Ray: "Who'd want to carry around a telephone??"

"I'd crawl across half a mile of broken glass to kiss the last guy who sucked her toes."

Oh Ray, I'm going to miss you the most when this show gets shit-canned.

[Eponah]

I really like the show, from the music, to the casting (especially Ray and Gene), to the "future" references. The initial time travel/coma story line hooked my interest and I was really set to find out what happened to Sam in the basement. So last night's episode (which I just watched on DVR), while quite humerous, left me wondering if I somehow missed a show. Guess not, but really gotta wonder why ABC would show this episode rather than the cliffhanger resolution.

If they wanted to hook in new viewers, what's wrong with just reshowing the cliffhanger? Hook new viewers with that, show the underlying premise of the show. Old viewers usually won't mind rewatching a cliffhanger set to be resolved. Isn't that why its now scheduled after Lost in the first place?

I definitely hope we get to see the entire season and maybe even more. Its one of the very few new shows I really enjoy.

[JodithGrace]

The anachronism that really jarred me was "Payback's a bitch." I don't remember exactly when referring to something as a bitch became prevalent, such as "Life's a bitch and then you die," but I'll bet anything that it wasn't the 70's. And I'm sure that the phrase, " Payback's a bitch," comes from something originally..a movie perhaps? Now this is going to bug me.

Funny enough, I forgot all about the whole cliffhanger thing, so I'm only angry about it NOW, after reading this thread. I was just so amused watching Johnny Sack playing a cop, and the unacknowledged tension between the two women over Sam, echoing the out there rivalry between the two cops. But yeah, now that you mention it...hey!

ETA: Okay..the earliest reference I could find was in the film Independence Day. Will Smith's character says "Payback's a bitch" to the aliens. That was in 1996.

This post has been edited by JodithGrace: Jan 30, 2009 @ 12:15 am.

[2deadcows]

I assumed "PAB" was Sam's contribution.

ETA: And before the Polaroid explanation, I filled in the blanks with "Punk Ass Bitch," so there's that.

This post has been edited by 2deadcows: Jan 30, 2009 @ 1:31 am.

[Wyldemusick]

a 200 year old Irish drinking song done by a British glam-Rock group

Actually, Irish, and blues-based hard rock a la AC/DC. Mind you, Phil Lynott did overuse eyeliner when he started his solo run.... As for the usage of "Whisky," I didn't think it worked as well as "Jailbreak" or "The Boys Are Back In Town" would have, and I think those are from the right period.

Loved Sam's spit-take on hearing who Maria was.

This was pretty much the big comedy episode, and I actually didn't mind all that much. I did like that the incidental underscore has started doing a good job of cloning period underscores, though less the TV cops than the movies -- whoever's doing the scores for LoM is a big fan of the music for The French Connection and the work of Lalo Schifrin.

[Eponah]

I don't remember exactly when referring to something as a bitch became prevalent,

I couldn't say for media (movies, TV, etc.), but I recall my friends and I referring to each other as "bitches" and using the word "bitchen" in the mid-late 70s.

[airylli]

I don't care what the excuse was, I loved them having Thin Lizzy's Whiskey in a Jar.

I actually liked this episode, although maybe it's because I'm suffering from Mad Men withdrawal. And Annie still sucks. But I'm liking Sam more and more as he's become quite different from UK Sam in that he's a bit crazier - more of a goof than the despairing prick UK Sam was a lot of the time. I like it when the US version does stupid silly things like "I am Spartacus!"

[Odac]

Eponah
I couldn't say for media (movies, TV, etc.), but I recall my friends and I referring to each other as "bitches" and using the word "bitchen" in the mid-late 70s.

In American Graffiti (set in 1963, filmed in 1973), Mackenzie Phillips calls the Beach Boys "Bitchin'", but as for the meme of calling annoying or difficult things "a bitch" or specifically the term "Payback's a bitch", I don't know if that was around back then. I think there's a possibility it might have been, at least maybe in the Black Culture of the day, although like most things it would then take Whites about 5-10 years to get hip to it.

airylli
I actually liked this episode, although maybe it's because I'm suffering from Mad Men withdrawal. And Annie still sucks. But I'm liking Sam more and more as he's become quite different from UK Sam in that he's a bit crazier - more of a goof than the despairing prick UK Sam was a lot of the time. I like it when the US version does stupid silly things like "I am Spartacus!"

As I said, I liked the light, breezy tone and easy camaraderie for much of the episode, but by the end it turned out to be just too much empty fluff. You just can't get get seriously invested in a show or its characters when absolutely everything, including a cop goading a guy on a ledge into jumping, is treated as background fodder for yuks. God knows I'm not looking for Battlestar Galactica here, but I'd like there to be *some* weight to the story, some indication that Sam doesn't just consider his marooning in 1973 to be nothing but one big good-time never-ending consequence-free party. Whatever happened to the animosity set up between Sam & Ray that we all thought was so promising? Apparently the Network decided that Ray was a popular character and so they made sure that he was made more "likable" and now he's just Goofy 70's Guy With A Mustache.

[naneki78]

Gene + Yabba Dabba Do...still ROTFLMAO

[Zantosa]

The anachronism that really jarred me was "Payback's a bitch." I don't remember exactly when referring to something as a bitch became prevalent, such as "Life's a bitch and then you die," but I'll bet anything that it wasn't the 70's.

I had a "Life's a bitch and then you die" coffee cup my freshman year of college, in 1984, which is obviously not 1973.

Count me in with everybody else who was horrified that they didn't follow up with the basement cliffhanger. I had just about given up on the show in the fall, and the cliffhanger made me decide to stick it out a bit longer. I can't imagine that the follow-up will satisfy, if the episode order can be rearranged and still make some sort of sense. The next episode needed to start with Sam going down into the basement, period.

I was also appalled that he hooked up with Gene's daughter, as nice as it was to see Maggie Siff. The character was supposed to have gotten lost investigating Maya's disappearance. He needs to find her again. Dramatic tension is created as Sam realizes that he has developed friendships in 1973, including an attraction to Annie. Choosing between Annie and Maya should be a big deal. Instead, as Odac said, he's treating 1973 as a party. Not a good choice by the writers. They could use a little of the Battlestar Galactica approach--what would really happen if this bizarre premise actually took place?

[Kalidah]

My contribution to Anachronism Watch: Ray saying "You just boinked the boss's daughter." Was anyone using "boink" that way before Bruce Willis started saying it on Moonlighting in the '80s?

And that scene where the Russian scientist talks about sending robots into the body to look for the soul while the Mars Rover crawled under his cheek and out his eye -- is Philip K. Dick helping with the scriptwriting from beyond the grave? It fit in with the rest of the episode about as well as a penguin in the Sahara.

Bad, disappointing episode, and no way to start a new run. I'm also a fan of Leverage, so I well know how much havoc a network can wreak when they decide to run episodes out of order -- I hope that's not what happens here.

[Fabrisse]

The little crawling thing with the scientist echoed an earlier Sam moment both in the episode and from an earlier episode. I thought it was a nice bit of bizarre continuity.

And I heard boinked, balled, and bonked at summer camp in about the same year, so I don't think that was too out of place.

[Constant]

Sam and his ladies is a far cry from near celibate UKSam.

But I'm liking Sam more and more as he's become quite different from UK Sam in that he's a bit crazier - more of a goof than the despairing prick UK Sam was a lot of the time. I like it when the US version does stupid silly things like "I am Spartacus!"

I loved UKSam because he was so neurotic and such a stickler for the rules (most of the time). We have enough "maverick cops who take the law into their own hands" on TV. When USSam told the scientist he wouldn't stop Ray from beating him he became a near carbon copy of most other TV cops.

This post has been edited by Constant: Jan 30, 2009 @ 4:40 pm.