Detective Chief Inspector Sam Tyler is not having a good day. First the bottom falls out of his seemingly slam dunk murder arrest. Then his girlfriend gets kidnapped by the real killer. Then he gets hit by a car and knocked into a coma.
Whereupon he wakes up thirty-three years earlier, in 1973. Here, he's a Detective Inspector, reporting to DCI Gene Hunt: a hard-drinking, head butts and backhanders kind of cop that the thoroughly 21st Century Sam considers only a step or two away from the criminals he chases.
Has Sam gone mad? Has he gone back in time? Is he in a coma? He's going to need to find answers if he ever wants to get home ...
This is the original UK Life on Mars, not the US remake (which for a while was actually quite good, and then had the worst finale this side of Dexter). It was a pretty punishing show for John Simm in the lead role, as part of the conceit of "is this all real?" is that we only ever see things where Sam is personally present - he's thus in every scene. Simm rises to the challenge well, though, and he's ably supported by the rest of the cast.
The scripts also really deliver: sometimes the progress of an individual episode can be a little slow, but the writers do a great job of integrating the 70s vs noughties conflict, as well as Sam's modern life and possible medical condition, into the case of the week. It's very solid work all round. If you don't mind the uncertainty as to Sam's actual situation (and there are no solid answers, at least not in these eight episodes), and you're okay with a slow burn kind of show, then you should check it out.
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