I have just finished watching all of the Life On Mars and i'm about to start watching Ashes To Ashes.
I have to say, hopefully not sounding dumb, that I didn't really understand the ending.
Was ?2006? his real world or was... I don't even know.
Could someone explain please :D
Thank you!
They call it P.M.S. because "mad cow disease" was already taken.
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As mentioned watch Ashes to Ashes and you will get the answer or...
[spoilers]Gene Hunts world is where dead cops go who have been killed before their time so to speak. Gene is sort of a guardian angel who helps them sort themselves out before going on to heaven or but over the years his forgot about it and thinks its all real. Sam can hear the voices because his not dead yet just in a coma. This is proven in series 3 of ashes when Drake dies at the start and stops hearing any more voices[she and the viewer only find out she died at the end of the series] [/spoiler]
Ok, Sam was in a car accident at the start of Life on Mars....He woke up in 1973.....He was actually in a 'Coma'.....and to get off topic a bit...People often wonder what's going on inside someones head when they are in a coma, there's evidence of high brain activity like when someone dreams, so it's not so far fetched that our brains could make up a fantasy land for coping with our trauma like a prolonged Dream state....Not relevant, but just something to think about me thinks :D
Anyway back on topic....The bar that Sam would frequent with Gene and Co. had a Bartender named 'Nelson' who would talk to Sam, but at Rare moments say something completely off guard that was relevant to Sam's situation in the real world.....Other things would happen like a little girl would appear to him and freak him out with scary conversation, and he would see scenes from the real world on the TV, and hear things on the telephone.....a lot of freaky *beep* would happen to him like hearing his heart monitor...Lights going off....ya know, stuff like that!!
Well in one episode 'Nelson' said something really important to him that would be essential later on.....He said:
Nelson: I see a darkness in you, Sam.
Sam Tyler: Oh, you can see into me, can you, Nelson? Well, Come on then. Am I mad? Huh? Is this real? Come on. I just want to know the truth.
Nelson: We all want that, Sam. What's real. What's not. I see folk who walk about in a sunken dream, 'cause they feel nothing. Are they alive?
Sam Tyler: I wake up every morning and I tell myself I am alive.
Nelson: When you can feel, then you're alive. When you don't feel, you're not.
In the final episode Sam meets a guy called 'Frank Morgan' who tells him that he was in a car accident that made him lose his memory before going undercover, and that he' s real and what follows is IMO the saddest scene in Life on mars where he goes back to the station and breaks down on hearing the truth.....But no, wait the show was 'mind *beep* the audience....a twist in a twist.....Sam was in a 'coma' all along, and 'Frank Morgan' is the doctor who operated on him....
So Sam's back in the real world...But it's not the same for him.....He's kinda just going through the motions of life.....In some boring police Procedure meeting and he's zoned out...He gets called but he wasn't listening, and then one of his colleagues tells him he's bleeding....He's cut himself on something but he didn't notice....He leaves the meeting...Goes up on the roof...makes a decision, and jumps...He'd rather the oblivion over life.....cause you're not alive if you can't feel, and he realized that.
So long story short.....accident....coma....out of coma....death...Life on Mars :D
sorry it was so long...just wanted to be thorough :))
Now obviously, the writers bring the story 'full circle' in Ashes to Ashes, so, if you want that spoiled too...Let me know ?
I thought the ending was a masterpiece of condensed writing. We know that time has passed (he has returned to his job after a long period in a coma) and so his decisions are not as spur of the moment. He knows he doesn't "feel" in the modern world, but it takes the blade cutting him to realize that this is literal. Nelson has told him that you know you are alive, because you can feel. Therefore, he is dead in the modern world and alive in 1973, where he has left people begging for his help, including a woman he loves.
Anyone judging Sam as being a "selfish suicide" has not been paying attention or is overly concerned with realism in a metaphysical world.