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.

Comments

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I remember being on the edge of my seat when he was on the roof and it was spinning and he began to run. Then feeling vaguely disappointed when the screen didn’t black out but somewhere between the music and the final shot of the kids running in the street I forgave them at the time.

I think the writer’s original plan was to have him wake up sadder but wiser but I can see how that would have been hard to express in 10 minutes and wouldn’t have felt climatic. Still you’re right the happy ending feels unearned or unconvincing somehow. I like the idea that “Sam in a coma” only dreamt that he woke up before sinking back into oblivion because it does combine the element of choosing what you remember before you die with the bleak notion that the whole thing was simply a dying man’s meanderings not a personal quest or redemptive journey.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

somewhere between the music and the final shot of the kids running in the street I forgave them at the time.

Yes, I had that experience, too.

And I read what the writer said. I understood it, emotionally, but it still seemed like the weaker choice to me.

I like the idea that “Sam in a coma” only dreamt that he woke up before sinking back into oblivion

Didn't John Simm say that that's how he interpreted the ending?

Anyway. I like all your theories about this. And it's cool that, whatever you feel about the ending, you can still read it however you want. There's no clear statement about what it actually means.