Commentary with Heather Riley

Thursday night TV has taken an interesting turn.  And by interesting turn I mean the programming has become much less interesting that it used to be. Gone are the days when we would be glued to the newest ER to witness George Clooney and his friends perform emergency surgery on an infant trapped in an elevator because a tornado had hit the ER.  Again.  The fact that ER is even still on the air shocks me. I think it must be going for a record for Greatest Number of People Who Have Starred in a Series or something because now I’ve noticed that Angela Bassett is on it- not to mention Dr. Green is returning from the dead this week. It may even still have some compelling storylines, but it has been on for so goshdarn (thanks SP) long I don’t think I would tune in to see.  My dad did mention that he DVRed it last week, but I think he was just excited to DVR something since it was his first night with FIOS. Anyway, there isn’t much in the way of competition for the Thursday 10 p.m. slot.  Or so I thought until last Thursday.

I had sort of breezed in and out of Life on Mars because although I wasn’t much interested in the storyline, the guy is hot- real hot.  He’s not just good looking, he’s wildly charming as well.  So cute.  Anyway, that was really the only reason my clicker ever stopped there, and I was never really engaged in the plot.  That whole stepping back in time thing, especially stepping back into the 70s, just didn’t really intrigue me.  Plus, I wasn’t really up for another, “Dear God what is happening here- is it heaven? Is it hell?  Is it another dimension?” because I watch Lost and get plenty of that there.

However, last Thursday, the kids were asleep and my husband wasn’t home and there was a HUGE pile of laundry to be folded so I tuned in to Life on Mars starring Mr. Cutie Pants.  (He’s got it going ON even in the bad 70s fashion.) ANYWAY. This show has something to it! Let me start by saying that I was born in 1974 and  I imagine that everyone’s early memories are the same: vague, dreamlike images with random bits of concrete detail. For me, I remember my mother making applesauce in our yellow kitchen and I remember watching Bjorn Borg playing tennis on the TV in our living room with a green rug and an orange afghan. Lots of patchwork also comes to mind.  And I have a vivid image of my dad wearing REALLY SHORT cutoff jeans and digging in a potato patch in our back yard. But in terms of the times, I can conjure up nothing with the one exception of encouraging my parents to vote for Carter, but that actually would have been in 1980 so it doesn’t really count. In Life on Mars, Harvey Keitel is a bad cop with an okay conscience and the hot guy’s name is Sam.  Sam was a cop in 2008 when he got run over by a car and woke up in 1973.  There are really kookey parts to it where he almost gets back to 2008 but not quite, but the really interesting part of the show is seeing how much has changed culturally since the 70s.  Back, then cops were very willing (and able) to take the law into their own hands.  It was a club of good old boys who were really pretty rogue. The show takes a very interesting look at sexism- which I really didn’t know existed so strongly back then- I’ve always thought of sexism as belonging to the 50s. According to Life on Mars, it wasn’t easy being a woman in the early 70s, what with all the crude remarks and all the cops thinking you were not so bright.  This was all well before sexual harassment lawsuits.  And the race wars!  Last week’s episode focused on the apparent murder of a black girl and then the Black Liberation Army’s attempt at vengeance.  It was a race between the BLA and the cops as to who was going to kill the responsible party first.  Whoopie Goldberg was wonderful as an undergound radio host.  I realize that this is in fact television and all, but if the show is even partly accurate it seems as though we are living in a much more civilized society now.  NYC in the 70s was a very dangerous place. However, despite all the ugliness, the show also allows us to laugh at how sensitive and careful we’ve all become in this day and age.  Political correctness is all good, but it has made us a much squishier society- as is illustrated on the show in the relationship between Keitel and Sam.

Anyway, Life on Mars is a pretty decent show.  It is an informative look back at recent history with a good storyline, great characters and a superhot guy in the lead.  Worth a watch…at least until ER finally calls it quits.