Life on Mars
Mondays at 10/9 Central on BBCA

Marathon this Sunday on BBCA!

If you have BBCA and haven't checked this one out yet, you'd better hurry up. This is the first marathon of the first half of the season, meaning there aren't that many more left. And when BBCA shows a series, it's over when it's over. Life On Mars is one of those you can't miss.

Life on Mars is the story of a policeman who is struck by a car in 2006 and "wakes up" a beat-detective in 1973. In the pilot, his first big case in the '70s is actually related to the case he was working in 2006 when he was struck.

The acting is great, but Life on Mars is so well-written that it would shine even if it starred Charlie Sheen, opposite Jon Crye... wait. It's well-written, to say the least.

The most interesting moments are when the lead, a rough-and-tumble agent, named Skyler, begins interacting with doctors who are trying to bring him out of his comatose/catatonic state in our present time -- in other words, "hearing voices." It's brilliantly disconcerting without losing the viewer or digressing completely from the story already in play. The cinematography is edgy and scampers skillfully across the lines that seperate the genres involved: from the gritty, shaky-camera, cinema-veritae action to stylized "buddy-cop" shots, to the dramatic, slow-action midshots of gangster movies, to the extreme close-ups and jump-shots of the period. Everything about the cinematography, setting, and wardrobe reinforces the program.

And again, the writing is superb; the dialogue flows easily and realistically and I never even once winced at some obvious clunk clambering from some poor actor's mouth. It's dramatic without taking itself too seriously, and also without resorting to snarky one-liners or painfully obvious comic relief.

My only reservations are the tense relationship between Skyler and the Gov. They've already come to blows more than a few times and are constantly second-guessing one another, even though they've proven themselves, time and again. But it works if you see it from the beginning, which is why it's great this marathon is coming on!

BBC has done it once again! Hex rocked hard, and Life on Mars is definintely as much fun as that was. But I will admit that NBC's new show, Heroes, slated to run opposite Life on Mars, is going to win-out when it starts up -- at least for the first episode or two. But Life on Mars may be over by then.

Now if they'd only bring back Trailer Park Boys!