Life on Mars S2 finale thoughts

[hazelk]

I’d been enjoying this second series. It’s felt more polished, the “issue” episodes less potentially preachy and better integrated with Sam’s emotional arcs. On the other hand some of edginess of the first series had been lost. Basically Gene Hunt had stopped being scary (and if you want to remember just how scary he was at first, I recommend re-watching Too much light in this bar by absolut3destiny). However, since part of the point this time around was that Sam was becoming more comfortable with the 1973 world, I didn’t really have a problem with it.

Sam wasn’t the only one getting complacent because the finale caught me completely by surprise so many times at the end I felt like I’d been in a car crash and gone back in time myself. From the physical shock of the testcard girl at the door, to Morgan’s alternative coma explanation, right up to that final leap of faith/despair at the end. According to interviews with the writers 2007 was real and Sam’s jump was suicidal but that doesn’t quite work for me, I think because we hadn’t seen enough of him in 2007 to justify his preferring death to staying in it. I’d rather think that his waking from the coma was illusory, a dream within in a dream. It makes the leaping from tall buildings as a mechanism for travelling between worlds more symmetrical with the scene in the first episode and the whole thing gentler and better in keeping with the overall tone. Not trying to say that modern life is hell, just that nothing we do as adults has quite the intensity of childhood.