Guess what? Sam was in a coma all along (cf Bobby's shower dream).
Sam's brain tumor and the swelling were the cause of his coma, and once operated on, he was hunky dory and back in the real world. All the 'clever' clues were actually his ward name, the room number, his surgeon... (It was around this time - 15 minutes from the end - that I started shouting at the TV.)
Except that once Sam was back, it didn't feel real to him. The life he'd longed to go back to - his family, the present - felt so much less real to him that he jumped off a roof - killed himself - to get back to 1973. And all because he'd promised Annie he wouldn't 'just leave'... Ah...
Questions...
If the 1973 life that Sam was living in ultimately was and felt more real to him than the present, why did he always want to go home so badly from 1973?
And why did he make the 'slightly' drastic choice of death in order to go back?
Surely he knew that was a cop-out (pardon the pun) - his mum, his girlfriend, his mates and colleagues would be distraught, guilt-ridden, at his recovery and sudden suicide?
One minute he was telling us that it was good to talk about it, the next jumping off the roof - why?
A copper of such principle, such a modern, ethical man, wouldn't choose to kill himself for racist, mysogynist fantasy-land?
He spent months trying to convince them that their methods made them corrupt, violent, sexist pigs (sorry again) - and yet he chose to go back and be one of them?
lf this is all correct, surely it's more accurate to say he was actually more mad than in a coma? Or both - the coma sent him mad?
And more...
Why did the Beeb commission a second series in the first place?
Why did I ever start watching it anyway?
lf it's true they made two endings, can they please let us see the other one?
Doesn't Jon Wilde's son's explanation seem so much better, more real, more satisfying?
Does it make me feel any better that one of the country's best TV critics doesn't seem to know what it means either?
Does all this mean Janet Street Porter's right, we get the TV we deserve?...
So many questions, and nere an answer to be found. Auntie, do the decent thing and 'Gene Hunt' the 80s spin-off now...
technorati tag: life on mars
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4 comments:
Aaaah, but was he in a coma... or was the coma part of his "created" story... which when examined wasn't real (he couldn't feel) so had to be let go of by ending the invented life story (suicide)? The question of why "kill yourself" becomes interesting then, if it brings an end to a numb un-reality and released him to be able to live fully in the reality in which he actually "felt"... which was more "real"? I think they left the posibility that it was the other way round generally... the clues eg. Hyde ward... could be seen as projections from the 70's as much as the other way... and notice the look Frank gave Sam when he moves away from the bed! And... if he kills himself how does the 70's world continue to exist unless it is actually real? If his mind created the 70's world in the comatose state, surely when his mind dies should the world it created?
If he kills himself in either "reality" ('73/ present day) how does the other one continue to exist in order for him to "return" - as an afterlife, a(nother) projection in the coma, what? Answer that smarty pants Berry! ;-) My main complaint is not about the content of the ending per se (that I wanted him to be a time-traveller, or mad, or whatever), more that I thought it was totally inconsistent with the Sam's character to commit suicide...
And besides all of which, if none of this was ever going to be "resolvable" as such, the programme makers have founded an entire two series on a false premise - "am i mad, in a coma, or back in time?"...
Don't forget that back in Episode - um - two, Annie's ex-boyfriend told him that he had to jump off the roof in order to show a commitment to returning to "reality".
Add to this, Nelson's comment that reality is where you feel alive, and he couldn't feel anything on 2007, he shows his "commitment to returning to reality" - ie 1973 - by jumping off the roof.
It fits ... just.
blummin nora would you give us a plot spoiler warning first next time missy? hadn't caught up with it yet, doh!
still, saves me tracking it down and watching it - never have enough hours in the day as it is...
how about this for a question, d'you think there's a parallel world (or a life in coma) where we just don't have tv? I do hope so, am sure my life over there is much more productive and fulfilling...
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