Life On Mars 2.08 rant
Apr. 12th, 2007 02:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hmpfSam Tyler, you are a selfish, cowardly, weak, *terminally stupid* (heh - literally!) little prick. You've managed to lose all my sympathy in one single mad moment. Up to now, I felt a bit guilty when I hurt you in fic; no more. You deserve what you get, you idiot. Clearly, you are completely resistant to any kind of deeper insight into your life.
(ETA, a couple of hours later: Don't let that tirade fool you, dear readers. I still love him.)
Of course, you are not entirely to blame. You're only a character; you were written this way. More's the shame, because so far, the writers' track record with this show (and with your characterisation and development) has been very nearly impeccable. But a show as focused on a central 'quest' stands or falls with its resolution, and, well, I'm afraid this one fell. Hard. You might as well have jumped a shark as jumped from the top of that building, Sam.
It's not just a matter of personal preference, either. There are right endings and wrong endings for stories. There's a certain amount of variation possible, but it's not infinite. There are things that work, and things that don't. This doesn't, plain and simple.
Oh, I'm sure it was *satisfying* on the wish-fulfilment scale, if you manage to switch off the parts of your brain that deal with things like narrative logic, character development and ethics... but it didn't make sense. This was not an ending to the story that eps 1.01-2.07 told us; it was fan fiction. Fanfic with a very high degree of verisimilitude, perhaps, but nevertheless fanfiction. Fanfiction gives us the endings we want, but which don't necessarily make sense within the logic of the source material; the endings we would like to see, but don't usually get, because in 99.9% of the cases they'd rob the source material of its power and/or its meaning.
Fan fiction gives us a happily ever after for Romeo and Juliet; fan fiction has Frodo Baggins find happiness with a sassy hobbit lass; fan fiction says „I want characters A and B together, and to hell with the consequences. Who cares about the moral of the story or what's the 'right' conclusion to a dramatic arc, anyway? They're cute together, and they'd be happy together, and that's all we need.“
I see people in this thread calling Sam's jump a 'leap of faith'. I see people seeing a message here that is 'you're alive if you feel alive'. Well, nice message.
The thing is... sometimes you have to work for happiness, sometimes you have to work at getting to the point where you 'feel alive'. Sometimes the right way to live your life isn't presented to you on a silver platter. Sometimes, when it seems like it *is* presented to you on a silver platter (even if you have to jump off a building for it), it's cheap and ultimately false, and also, morally wrong.
And, most of all, the 'right life' isn't in a certain place or time or constellation of people. It's something you have to *make* yourself, every bloody day of your life, and yes, it's hard and there are no guarantees.
I thought 1973 had taught Sam some things about life; *general*, universal things about life, not things like 'if I'm honest with myself, this way of policing is unexpectedly fun, and I like Gene and Annie and Chris... and possibly even Ray, sort of. And the music's better here, too.'
Sam's jump is anything but a leap of faith. It's a declaration of bankruptcy. It's escapism, of the worst kind: the kind we as fans often get accused of, and maybe that is why I'm taking it personally. Yes, we all want to disappear into a better place sometimes, be that Manchester in 1973 or Middle-earth, or the United Federation of Planets in the 24th century. But ultimately, we have to realise that trying to escape from our reality isn't the answer. Oh, I'm with Tolkien all right in defending escapism against the bad press it's been getting – escapism is an extremely important psychological mechanism, a need we all have and nobody should feel embarrassed about indulging. I routinely spend at least half my day indulging in it, myself – writing, planning fics, idly speculating, reading, watching stuff... I can totally see the appeal of spending your life in a dream. But when it gets to the point where you give up on your Real Life, it gets dangerous. See exhibit A: remains of one Sam Tyler, dead of terminal avoidance of reality.
Sam's 2007 life sucked? Well, tough luck, Sammy-boy. So does mine, at the moment. So do something about it. 1973 gave you a chance to find out a lot of stuff about what makes life worth living for you... so apply that to your life in 2007. What's stopping you? Your job sucks? Quit. Yes, I know that's a scary prospect – in some ways, perhaps, scarier than jumping off a building. But, you know, change is one thing that can make you feel alive. Believe me, I've tried it. Sometimes, doing something scary (but perhaps not quite as final as killing yourself) is the best way to kick your life into gear again.
Mind you, even if we assume that 1973 was *real*, the ending is still wrong, on a moral level and on a 'story logic' level, too. Let's take a closer look.
So, if 1973 is real... then Sam really had an obligation of sorts to get his colleagues and friends there out of the pickle he got them into. I admit that. And I would *even* have been fine with him jumping and all - if it hadn't been presented to us as a perfectly happy ending. Because it isn't, and it never can be. Because, veiled hints in a conversation or no, his mum's never going to understand why he did it. Maya's never going to understand it. His aunt is never going to understand it. And who knows who else there is that we haven't heard of – I doubt these really were the only three people of importance in Sam's life. In all of these people's lives, there's now always going to be a dark spot of grief and unanswered questions. Possibly guilt, too – 'Was there anything we could have done to stop him?'
Oh, I'm sure he left them a letter or something. Fat lot of good that's gonna do.
Assuming 1973 is real and Gene and Annie and co were in mortal danger there, should consideration for his family and friends have kept him from jumping to save the 1973 crowd? No, probably not – there were lives at stake. But there should have been a sense of loss about it, instead of simply and only a sense of liberation. But liberation is what they went for with how they portrayed the jump and Sam's return to 1973; we're meant to feel simply and uncritically happy there (and most people did). There is no sense of loss – 2007 wasn't 'a proper life', anyway, he was as good as dead there, just a cog in a cold, heartless machine, yadda yadda yadda. Life's so much better when you're dead, err, in 1973!
So that's why the ending rang wrong for me on the moral side. Now for the story's internal logic (not just the last ep's, but the entire show's):
This show has been largely about Sam's psychological development. It's been about him relaxing, learning to see life from a different side, learning to open up to people and rely on them, and about him rediscovering fun, quite simply. Or at least that's what I thought it was about. Apparently I was wrong, and it was really all about 'Life in 1973 with Gene and Annie and Chris and Ray is just so much more fun than the present, wheeeeeeee!' Apparently, there are no people worthy of Sam's friendship in the present; apparently, there is no way of having fun or a fulfilled life in the present. Apparently, Life On Mars was *not* about Sam Tyler learning something about himself, but about Sam Tyler running away from himself after all.
Which, you know, *would* be satisfying in its own harsh, frustrating, tragic way if this was how it was *meant* to be read. I could live with LoM as a tragedy about a reality-avoiding, burnt-out career-driven guy who never learns how to face up to the real problems in his life and ultimately takes a desperately stupid step. The friend with whom I watched the ep chose to interpret it like that – until we both read the interview with Matthew Graham, that is.
There were other things that annoyed me a bit, too, but nothing serious – a few clunky lines from Annie and Nelson. The impression that we got that basically, Sam apparently just got up and put on his suit and walked out of hospital after his coma. (Yes, I get that there was probably some time between the waking up itself and that scene. But it looked very 'seamless'.) None of that would have 'killed' the episode for me like the ending did, really.
What did I like about this ep? The 'FRUSTRATION' box in the Lost & Found. Sam's insane grin when he very pointedly said 'I'm in a coma, *Frank*.' Every single expression on John Simm's face, especially during the graveyard scene.
And now I'll go and explain again why the ending was all wrong, only this time in the form of novel-length, excruciatingly slowly written fanfic.
But first I'll go and construct at least five different alternative explanations of the ending that are less frustrating for me personally. (At the moment, I feel like I could use a FRUSTRATION box in my room, too. *g*)
Here's one to start with: It wasn't Gene who's the tumour, and the tumour isn't benign, either. It was Frank Morgan all along, and Frank Morgan/the cancer is killing Sam. It's certainly suspicious that the 'real world' surgeon was called after the actor who played the wizard of Oz, isn't it?! Sam only thought he woke up, but was essentially only on another level of his coma fantasies. Perhaps slightly closer to the surface, but certainly not out. The tumour is inoperable and Sam really is dying and will never wake up again; his '2007' experiences were a veiled way of his subconscious telling him that. His jump signifies his acceptance of that fact even as he is dying (in hospital, in his coma, not in a puddle of blood on the ground); Annie's plea to stay with them forever is to be taken literally and he's now in the afterlife. The end.
Oh, I think I like that interpretation. I think I'll make that my official truth now.
BTW; anyone wanna adopt a plot bunny about Annie as a fallen angel who's built 1973 to trap Sam's soul and keep it to herself forever?
Addendum: I've also posted the same rant/review/thing in the ep 2.08 thread at the Railway Arms, and I've also posted some more stuff there, and gotten some interesting replies, too. So, if you're interested in this angle: http://domeofstars.com/forum/index.php?topic=1011.360
(I've sort of vowed to stay away from there, mostly, in the next few weeks, though, because I just realised that it's just making myself *and* everybody else unhappy.)
(ETA, a couple of hours later: Don't let that tirade fool you, dear readers. I still love him.)
Of course, you are not entirely to blame. You're only a character; you were written this way. More's the shame, because so far, the writers' track record with this show (and with your characterisation and development) has been very nearly impeccable. But a show as focused on a central 'quest' stands or falls with its resolution, and, well, I'm afraid this one fell. Hard. You might as well have jumped a shark as jumped from the top of that building, Sam.
It's not just a matter of personal preference, either. There are right endings and wrong endings for stories. There's a certain amount of variation possible, but it's not infinite. There are things that work, and things that don't. This doesn't, plain and simple.
Oh, I'm sure it was *satisfying* on the wish-fulfilment scale, if you manage to switch off the parts of your brain that deal with things like narrative logic, character development and ethics... but it didn't make sense. This was not an ending to the story that eps 1.01-2.07 told us; it was fan fiction. Fanfic with a very high degree of verisimilitude, perhaps, but nevertheless fanfiction. Fanfiction gives us the endings we want, but which don't necessarily make sense within the logic of the source material; the endings we would like to see, but don't usually get, because in 99.9% of the cases they'd rob the source material of its power and/or its meaning.
Fan fiction gives us a happily ever after for Romeo and Juliet; fan fiction has Frodo Baggins find happiness with a sassy hobbit lass; fan fiction says „I want characters A and B together, and to hell with the consequences. Who cares about the moral of the story or what's the 'right' conclusion to a dramatic arc, anyway? They're cute together, and they'd be happy together, and that's all we need.“
I see people in this thread calling Sam's jump a 'leap of faith'. I see people seeing a message here that is 'you're alive if you feel alive'. Well, nice message.
The thing is... sometimes you have to work for happiness, sometimes you have to work at getting to the point where you 'feel alive'. Sometimes the right way to live your life isn't presented to you on a silver platter. Sometimes, when it seems like it *is* presented to you on a silver platter (even if you have to jump off a building for it), it's cheap and ultimately false, and also, morally wrong.
And, most of all, the 'right life' isn't in a certain place or time or constellation of people. It's something you have to *make* yourself, every bloody day of your life, and yes, it's hard and there are no guarantees.
I thought 1973 had taught Sam some things about life; *general*, universal things about life, not things like 'if I'm honest with myself, this way of policing is unexpectedly fun, and I like Gene and Annie and Chris... and possibly even Ray, sort of. And the music's better here, too.'
Sam's jump is anything but a leap of faith. It's a declaration of bankruptcy. It's escapism, of the worst kind: the kind we as fans often get accused of, and maybe that is why I'm taking it personally. Yes, we all want to disappear into a better place sometimes, be that Manchester in 1973 or Middle-earth, or the United Federation of Planets in the 24th century. But ultimately, we have to realise that trying to escape from our reality isn't the answer. Oh, I'm with Tolkien all right in defending escapism against the bad press it's been getting – escapism is an extremely important psychological mechanism, a need we all have and nobody should feel embarrassed about indulging. I routinely spend at least half my day indulging in it, myself – writing, planning fics, idly speculating, reading, watching stuff... I can totally see the appeal of spending your life in a dream. But when it gets to the point where you give up on your Real Life, it gets dangerous. See exhibit A: remains of one Sam Tyler, dead of terminal avoidance of reality.
Sam's 2007 life sucked? Well, tough luck, Sammy-boy. So does mine, at the moment. So do something about it. 1973 gave you a chance to find out a lot of stuff about what makes life worth living for you... so apply that to your life in 2007. What's stopping you? Your job sucks? Quit. Yes, I know that's a scary prospect – in some ways, perhaps, scarier than jumping off a building. But, you know, change is one thing that can make you feel alive. Believe me, I've tried it. Sometimes, doing something scary (but perhaps not quite as final as killing yourself) is the best way to kick your life into gear again.
Mind you, even if we assume that 1973 was *real*, the ending is still wrong, on a moral level and on a 'story logic' level, too. Let's take a closer look.
So, if 1973 is real... then Sam really had an obligation of sorts to get his colleagues and friends there out of the pickle he got them into. I admit that. And I would *even* have been fine with him jumping and all - if it hadn't been presented to us as a perfectly happy ending. Because it isn't, and it never can be. Because, veiled hints in a conversation or no, his mum's never going to understand why he did it. Maya's never going to understand it. His aunt is never going to understand it. And who knows who else there is that we haven't heard of – I doubt these really were the only three people of importance in Sam's life. In all of these people's lives, there's now always going to be a dark spot of grief and unanswered questions. Possibly guilt, too – 'Was there anything we could have done to stop him?'
Oh, I'm sure he left them a letter or something. Fat lot of good that's gonna do.
Assuming 1973 is real and Gene and Annie and co were in mortal danger there, should consideration for his family and friends have kept him from jumping to save the 1973 crowd? No, probably not – there were lives at stake. But there should have been a sense of loss about it, instead of simply and only a sense of liberation. But liberation is what they went for with how they portrayed the jump and Sam's return to 1973; we're meant to feel simply and uncritically happy there (and most people did). There is no sense of loss – 2007 wasn't 'a proper life', anyway, he was as good as dead there, just a cog in a cold, heartless machine, yadda yadda yadda. Life's so much better when you're dead, err, in 1973!
So that's why the ending rang wrong for me on the moral side. Now for the story's internal logic (not just the last ep's, but the entire show's):
This show has been largely about Sam's psychological development. It's been about him relaxing, learning to see life from a different side, learning to open up to people and rely on them, and about him rediscovering fun, quite simply. Or at least that's what I thought it was about. Apparently I was wrong, and it was really all about 'Life in 1973 with Gene and Annie and Chris and Ray is just so much more fun than the present, wheeeeeeee!' Apparently, there are no people worthy of Sam's friendship in the present; apparently, there is no way of having fun or a fulfilled life in the present. Apparently, Life On Mars was *not* about Sam Tyler learning something about himself, but about Sam Tyler running away from himself after all.
Which, you know, *would* be satisfying in its own harsh, frustrating, tragic way if this was how it was *meant* to be read. I could live with LoM as a tragedy about a reality-avoiding, burnt-out career-driven guy who never learns how to face up to the real problems in his life and ultimately takes a desperately stupid step. The friend with whom I watched the ep chose to interpret it like that – until we both read the interview with Matthew Graham, that is.
There were other things that annoyed me a bit, too, but nothing serious – a few clunky lines from Annie and Nelson. The impression that we got that basically, Sam apparently just got up and put on his suit and walked out of hospital after his coma. (Yes, I get that there was probably some time between the waking up itself and that scene. But it looked very 'seamless'.) None of that would have 'killed' the episode for me like the ending did, really.
What did I like about this ep? The 'FRUSTRATION' box in the Lost & Found. Sam's insane grin when he very pointedly said 'I'm in a coma, *Frank*.' Every single expression on John Simm's face, especially during the graveyard scene.
And now I'll go and explain again why the ending was all wrong, only this time in the form of novel-length, excruciatingly slowly written fanfic.
But first I'll go and construct at least five different alternative explanations of the ending that are less frustrating for me personally. (At the moment, I feel like I could use a FRUSTRATION box in my room, too. *g*)
Here's one to start with: It wasn't Gene who's the tumour, and the tumour isn't benign, either. It was Frank Morgan all along, and Frank Morgan/the cancer is killing Sam. It's certainly suspicious that the 'real world' surgeon was called after the actor who played the wizard of Oz, isn't it?! Sam only thought he woke up, but was essentially only on another level of his coma fantasies. Perhaps slightly closer to the surface, but certainly not out. The tumour is inoperable and Sam really is dying and will never wake up again; his '2007' experiences were a veiled way of his subconscious telling him that. His jump signifies his acceptance of that fact even as he is dying (in hospital, in his coma, not in a puddle of blood on the ground); Annie's plea to stay with them forever is to be taken literally and he's now in the afterlife. The end.
Oh, I think I like that interpretation. I think I'll make that my official truth now.
BTW; anyone wanna adopt a plot bunny about Annie as a fallen angel who's built 1973 to trap Sam's soul and keep it to herself forever?
Addendum: I've also posted the same rant/review/thing in the ep 2.08 thread at the Railway Arms, and I've also posted some more stuff there, and gotten some interesting replies, too. So, if you're interested in this angle: http://domeofstars.com/forum/index.php?topic=1011.360
(I've sort of vowed to stay away from there, mostly, in the next few weeks, though, because I just realised that it's just making myself *and* everybody else unhappy.)
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-12 04:58 am (UTC)If Sam is dead, and the final scene is his final second of life stretching out to a subjective eternity: then how on earth can Ashes to Ashes feature the detective he sent his tape to in 2007 recognising the characters he describes? And if Sam is "in" A2A because it's all taking place in his imagination, as the BBC Wales site says, then how on earth is he dead? Some one suggested to me that in the final "eternal second" Sam could imagine the story of the sequel, but I think that's unlikely if 1973 really is just Sam's imagination. Sam could certainly be imagining her story in that last second - but we've already effectively been told Sam's in Heaven, so why is he imaging someone else he's never met meeting his dearest friends ten years down the line - and his friends are without him. It's a bit weird. It's not that I don't want to see more of Gene doing his magnificent monster act, but if he really has no existence except as part of Sam's unlikely perfect world, then what is he doing away from Sam?
I think the writer wants it both ways; to have a cool story about someone who gets the fantasy he wants - and it's real! He's in big-H Heaven! - and to be simultaneously too cool to have written something like that and throw in a dig about fans overanalysing something that's "just tv" (with the test card girl being a joke to - or on - the viewer along the lines of "we all know we've been only wacthing tv, now do something else, here, I'll turn the tv off for you").
Failure
Date: 2007-04-12 06:14 am (UTC)I don't think the genre was the problem here. They could have kept 1973 on exactly the same level of reality/unreality *and* even kept Sam there permanently, thus giving all the "OMG Sam can't leave Gene/Annie!!!!11" people the happy ending they wanted, with only a few minor changes to what they actually did. No outright sf stuff would have been needed. It could all still have been exactly what it seems to be now, a dream in between life and death or a version of the afterlife. All they would have needed to do was to have Sam die 'properly' (instead of by
stupiditysuicide). See my suggestion for an alternative interpretation near the end of my rant. They could have achieved that without *any* changes to the storyline at all - they just would have needed to emphasise a few things slightly differently than they chose to do.Re: Failure
Date: 2007-04-12 07:41 am (UTC)Where I see the disjunct is that the writer is disingenuous enough to praise simms acting in that scene, to mention his interpretation of "2007", and then to stress that Sam really did go back to 2007, but chose 1973. I think the writers want to hjave their cake and eat it; they've repeatedly gone on record as saying they wanted to make a police show like The Sweeney, and regretting that they couldn't do that, as such a sexist and racist show would never be aired today. Life on Mars is a self-referential and self-critical Sweeney - and it's brilliant, don't get me wrong, I love it. But it does depend on a fairly standard science-fiction cliche, and I think the writers are backing away from that in the final scene, for whatever reason. (And the reason I've most frequently seen in writers for backing away from science-fiction is so they can claim they were writing a more "acceptable" genre).
The final scene is different in feel, I think, to the other 1973 scenes. 1973 was always idealised in the other episodes - when Sam runs up against prejudices he sorts them out in some way: he usually manages to change at least some people's mind, or he gets to punch racist thugs, and so on. It's incredible sunny in a lot of episodes. Manchester is weirdly clean, for a city filled with industry and vehicles running on leaded petrol. Everyone smokes and nobody coughs. It's an idealised remembered child's-eye view of 1973, in a lot of ways. The final scene takes all of that and ramps it up - now apparently many of the division can be off-duty at the same time, drinking in the middle of the afternoon. Ray forgives Sam . . . Ray forgives Sam! Sam leaves the pub looking for Annie . . . and bumps into her almost immediately. No one seems to hold the "undercover from Hyde" thing against Sam - in fact, it seems to have been forgotten. The team's injuries are apparently no reason for them to take any time off work, and off they go, following a rainbow, on another mission, while the streets fill with innocent children in their wake.
That's different, I think, to what came before. That's the dying fantasy of a character with depression and possibly brain/neural injury following brain surgery. And I think the change in tone is - in part - a result of the cool 1970s cop show the writers wanted to do hinging on its sfnal elements, when they'd have preferred it done straight if they could. The writer even backs away from the ending by saying that while Sam is driving off into the afterlife, it's a subjective one that in reality lasts only a second. And then the wonderful final appearance of the test card girl, which makes the story more open ended and allows interpretive room for 1973 to possibly have a reality outside Sam's head - she's backed away from as well, with the explanation that she was just a joke for/on the viewers to stress that it was all just TV.
I wonder why the BBC originally objected to the suicide? Bad things can and do happen to major characters in British TV, after all.
I agree about the writers...
Date: 2007-04-12 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-02 01:15 am (UTC)Think Hyde (Jekyll and Hyde, that is) - Gene is Sam. He's the repressed part, buried until the controlled part steps aside.