Life on Mars

What is it:

In a nutshell it is a modern day cop in a modern day world

Location:

The series was shot in Manchester

In one vital scene of the series, our protagonist awakens in Pollard Street

And in another in China Lane.

All of these images provide a sense of atmosphere and pivotal surroundings to create the exact style, genre and storyline of the series.

The Style

The series is set in 1973 and in modern day, but mostly in the 70’s a very different kind of generation was grooving on back then.

The clothing.

The loose access to illegal substances

When Disco was King

And Sex was safe

Cast.

John Simm, Philip Glenister, Liz White, Dean Andrews, Marshall Lancaster

Crew.

Matthew Graham, Tony Jordan, Ashley Pharoah.

Throughout the series, the plot centres on the ambiguity concerning Tyler’s predicament of it being unclear to bothe the audience and the character whether he has died, gone mad or into a coma, or has actually travelled back in time.

The Genre.

It could be argued that Life on Mars in fact is a science fiction disguised as a police procedural.

Or it could be a surreal fantasy like Twin Peaks or the X files.

What it does however is taking some influences within the crime , film noir genre and making a whole new world of it’s own. Especially whilst providing a stylistic set piece since it’s the 70’s making the surrounding’s vital not only the occurences that happen . But also because of it’s subject discovering a whole new world he has never explored before . Making the outer scale a major character of the series as much as the characters themselves.

Some of the influences.