In all honesty, i had a feeling that something like this was going to happen.

The BBC ended in a way that was not only finished the series with a lot of emotion, with Sam talking the leap of faith back to the past.

Despite previousarticles from the producers where they said they asked to shoot two episodes and was told to shoot just the finale. It felt that they had shoot an episode to end the season and wrapped enough up to have sam slingshot back to 2009 for a wakeup cliffhanger. Only to pull off the last 10 minutes, cut out a couple minutes more and throw on the spaceship ending.

Yes we get an ending as we were promiced and yet it's more of a cop out "lets throw this in if we aren't renewed"

I don't even mind the basic idea of Sam truely being in 2035, but it would have worked better if it was an episode at the end of another season with enough time and hints leading up to it, than the "run time error - program end'

Beyond that, did they really need to make Gene Sam's dad, like that? And I would have prefered to have it pan off the ship to "rocketman" than that godawful loafer on mars effect, that killed any last redeeming quality the ending could have had.

If the series had continued with it being in 2035 with the mission to Mars, it would be a cool show. I really liked the ending even if it did not follow the BBC.

It might have worked better if this mystery had been stretched out over several seasons. if the hints as to where he was had been flowing gradually so certain people were already reaching the conclusion that whatever was going on was pretty darn weird, we might have been able to accept it. But to just throw a curveball like that at people out of the blue makes them completely disengage from the story.

I've never watched the show, either version, but i started watching half way through the final ep for some reason. I liked that they actually made sense of the title of the show. Does it make any sense in the original version? Life on Mars?

Well, it does make sense, no? "Life on Mars" should have been the giveaway. "Gene Hunt", ie: the search for life, etc...

It's those ripoffs over at the BBC that got it all wrong, ripping off the concept of the US series, only to change the ending, and in an even MORE Sci Fi way, by traveling back through time a few years and writing a completely befuddling ending for THEIR series, only to air it years before the original US series.

Now that makes TOTAL sense.

:-)

-M-

Justo, it made sense in the BBC series (ripped off from the US series using time travel) because Sam wakes up to "Life on Mars" by David Bowie playing on his car stereo.

Like in "Ashes to Ashes" when Alex finds herself listening to yet another Bowie song.

I'm just waiting for "Heroes", also by Bowie... oh. Wait. They're doing that series now, aren't they?

What about "Young Americans" or "Diamond Dogs" for the next series?

Hey, BBC, call me. I have tons of ideas, all stored up on this Greatest Hits disk here...

"Five Years"
"The Man Who Sold The World"
"Let's Dance"... ok, perhaps not that one.
"Scary Monsters"
"It's No Game"

A wealth of ideas, I tell ya. Just fire up the time machine and come talk to my agent back in 1987 or so when I'm less busy.

-M-

It reminds me the 13th Floor.

Well I'm glad I never looked at this Americanized version (not one peek). From the looks of it the BBC version is still the tops (me thinks it's time to pulls out the DVDs again to see how a show is suppose to be done).

I was appalled by the ending. I saw that the finale was going to be on, and forgot that I had two episodes I hadn't seen yet. I'm glad I missed them, because after learning that the ENTIRE SERIES was all a meaningless dream, I would have simply wasted my time. The show did a great job of creating questions and teasing us with the possibility for answers. And then we cut to the interior of a low-budget space ship set with blinky lights and we get assaulted with a scene that essentially says, "HAH HAH!! SUCKERS!!!"

"Annie was never finally promoted to detective after all her work to be accepted?"

Um, but she was. We saw her promoted, before the whole thing turned out to be just a dream.

For me the only thing that really upset me is that if the whole thing was about him realizing Annie was the one and how it was about him finding her (as he came to realize at the end before the final jump to 2035).. then he gets to 2035 and he isn't with her because it was all in HIS head. The Annie he fell in love with may not be like the real one, and the real one isn't in love with him in return.

I' was hoping that perhaps the glitch that happenned with the meteor storm took him out of his fantasy and threw him into Annie's, and her fantasy was to be a cop in 1973 and the first female detective.. and as a result they really did fall in love and get together while in transit and now in Mars they can be together in the real life. That could have been setup real easy with just a comment by her on that final scene on the ship, or a comment by the younger guy (forget his name) saying (as a response to when Sam says 'I ended up in 1973) 'hey.. that's what Colonel Morris' fantasy was' and then she gives Sam a knowing look or a smile.

But I've gone and rewatched it and even though that's what I want to believe happenned, there is no hint of that. All that happenned was that Sam was able to resolve his daddy issues, and now he is in love with the Colonel,.. but she probably isn't in love with him. (it seems to me anyway)

The problem with that sort of ending - where it's all in one character's head - is all the stuff we saw that didn't involve that character. If Sam's locked up on the sofa in Hyde, how would he know what Rose and Annie were saying to each other. A simple "we all got stuck in your hallucination" would've sufficed. Shoddy writing - very shoddy.

Tough luck, the US has been screwing the rest of the world on endings for years, moaning when you don’t get the first run of anything (BSG) or letting the world know the endings of films before we even get to see them, in essence ruining them for everyone else (Blair Witch).

Weird. I thought it was a pretty inspired ending to a lackluster show. Too often, the show segued into stuff that felt like the Farscape writers took more LSD and decided to write a cop show. The ending was both satisfying and reasonably logical.

Simply crap. It was pretty much a shock to my system. I got totally jilted. Here i was thinking it would be a great ending. Now I see I have wasted the better part of a couple of months following this thing.

Crap.

I almost always disagree with posts on Fidgit or scifi wire, but this review is 100% correct. The ending was not logical at all for exactly the reason the review pointed out. It does not matter that the writers were clearly going in this direction due to the multiple space references it was still stupid and uncalled for. This was the worst series ending ever, even worse then Sliders which basically had no ending.

The American show was full of anachronisms and was obviously written by people with only a passing knowledge of the early 70's, probably sculpted by growing up watching The Wonder Years in the 80's. Still, the show had its charm and was canceled too soon.

The BBc show dealt with existential issues and the American version flirted with them. They explored issues like Who am I? or What makes me, me?. The British version ended n a very bleak but also beautiful way where the main character wakes from a coma and returns to the present only to find it sucks. So, he leaps from top of a tall building and kills himself. He goes back to 1973, either in the afterlife or... whatever.

The American version stops flirting with sci-fi and sloppily embraces it all of a sudden by making the whole thing a fantasy reality meant to occupy the brains of the first astronauts to land on Mars. It was pretty dumb. I think the American writers were oblivious to the fact that David Bowie was using poetic license with the lyrics of his song or they thought that an unsophisticated American audience needed to see Mars at the end of a show titled Life On Mars.

It was all a dream isn't even a remotely original ending. Newheart did it decades ago!

Whatever the explanation, the American version is going to remain a promising but failed remake of an excellent British show.

I liked it. Having it all be a dream doesn't make it meaningless. How jaded are we that we think dreams are meaningless? Obviously it was helping him resolve issues with his father (heh heh, Gene Hunt) and with Annie (who got to be far in the future, being everyone's boss). I also think this was LESS ambiguous than the UK version. One is maybe an afterlife (or as the creators said, one single moment before death), and on this one they're on Mars. This is a SciFi website (erm, SyFy?) and the ending doesn't work well because they're on another planet in the future? Huh?

While there were a few holes I wouldn't have minded getting filled in (the images for Vic and Rose, for example) I think the ending, in the context of the entire series, was fine. And NOT pointless.

Though that shot of Hunt's white shoe touching down on Martian soil was a bit much.

Marlowe, I hope you are being tongue in cheek. Life on Mars was named after the Bowie song, as was it's spin off, Ashes to Ashes.

And as for how this disaster ended...

All I can say is this...

I told you so.

I wholeheartedly agree with this article's author that the finale was very unsatisfying. I would have much more appreciated more of an understated cliffhanger like the BBC original. Sam jumped from a building, he rejoins his crew, he lives on, that's it. The all-too-literal ending of the US version had me scratching my head. Not because I didn't see it coming with all the random robots sprinkled throughout the episodes...but because why would we waste 17 hours on an all-too-obvious ending. If you wanted to throw an unexpected twist to the ending, how about NOT having it be about Mars.

(After a small pause, looking at Marlowe ) Mr. Bowie, that you? I thought you answered to 'Sailor' while online. Either way, your track list / show idea comment is actually funny.

'I've never watched the show, either version, but i started watching half way through the final ep for some reason. I liked that they actually made sense of the title of the show. Does it make any sense in the original version? Life on Mars?'

Actually, Justo, the British version did make sense. The title was based on the famous David Bowie song. Remember him? The rock legend. The character Major Tom was a creation of his for the song Space Oddity. The song Life on Mars plays right before the hero ends up in 1973. Hence the title. The BBC Spin off Ashes to Ashses is named after Bowie's 1981 song. The song was the linking factor and the song was... GASP not about Mars at all! It was about society.

You didn't know there was a famous pop song called 'Life on Mars?' that you know... played in the show?

I know Bowie's in his sixties, but come on. He's a living rock icon.

I know I smelt rotten eggs when this Americanized version started...

One comment said, "...because after learning that the ENTIRE SERIES was all a meaningless dream..."

Doesn't that describe pretty much ALL television?

President Obama. Wow what a inspired piece of stupidity.

Of course, aside from the nice touch of having the Bowie song playing on the radio both in the present as well as 1973, the key reason why the series is called 'life on mars' is because life in 1973 seems so radically different to Sam's life today that it may as well be another planet.

I'm amazed that anyone filming the US version could come up with anything so crass as taking that notion and making it literal. As others have said, aside form anything else, it's a complete rehash of the oldest, most tired SF cliche in the book.

Interestingly, John Simm has said that the BBC version was originally supposed to end with Sam leaping from the roof. The additional scene with him back in 1973 was shot because the beeb felt it was too bleak to leave the aftermath of his 'leap of faith' open.

Personally I agree with the Simm's view that the orginal plan would have been far more in keeping with the rest of the series...

What the hell do you people want when ABC did not give the series a chance to get an audience? They wrapped it up the best way they could with the ending they probably always wanted/intended but what was messed up was the delivery of it. Things had to get cut out so they could end it as proper as they could to give the audience some closure. I am sure if the suits as ABC decided to let it go for a few more seasons they could have made this ending make more sense for the audience “to buy it”. Thanks to ABC and their great wisdom we have to live with feeling short changed while crap shows like “Better Off Ted” (which isn't funny at all on any level) and “Dancing with the Stars” still keep going.

I have to be honest and say I was speechless at the end of the episode. Having been a rabid fan of the UK version of the show, I was excited to see it come to American TV and even accepted/forgave the embarrassment of the first pilot but last night's poorly executed 'dream sequence' was hideous.

For those who enjoyed the premise of Life on Mars, I highly recommend renting the UK version and enjoying the two seasons. It's not always as good as some of the US episodes but in some places it's a little better so think of it more as a friend retelling you a story about the big game, and it'll be a blast.

The ending was perfect. Much, much, much better than the predictable and unpleasant final episode of the British version. In fact, the entire series was far and away better than the British one. I tried to watch Ashes To Ashes on BBC America, but it didn't hold my interest.

"Bobby Ewing under tghe shower" all over agaion!

They got to be kidding!

I was fine with the ending. There were multiple things in each episode that hinted at the ending. I'd have been much happier had they had the time to put Sam back in 2008/9, have him make his way back to 1973/4, and then give off the big reveal 2 or 3 episodes from the end with Sam needing to use information from his vision quests - on a much nicer set with less horrible wigs - to resolve some major issue. However, the show was canceled, so they did what they could and I was fine with it. I won't buy it on DVD, but I don't regret watching it.

It appears many people, including your reviewer, missed the series of clues sprinkled throughout the series, all of which pointed to this resolution ('spaceman', the nano-robots, the constant references to Bowie-- his band, you'll recall, was the Spiders from Mars--many others). So this direction and outcome are the only ones that really maintain the artistic integrity of the series.

Moreover, any resolution with Sam being in a coma would have been no less of a 'dream', and this actually preserved the chances for Sam to reconnect with the main characters, e.g. Annie and Gene, in his 'real' life.

All in all, a tour de force, with the only disappointment being that ABC didn't give LOM more of a chance to find its audience...

Palafox, it's not that it wasn't anticipated. It's that it was so cliche and contrived. The original coma ending had heart that this cold literal translation lacks.

I thought the ending tied up everything very neatly. It was a science fiction ending, which is great. I felt I learned about the other characters through Sam's dream perceptions of them, and I have no problem with that at all. Bobby Ewing woke up from a dream on a soap opera, for pete's sake. This felt more like a journey in Sam's mind.

And it's FAR better than the lame ending of Battlestar, which was basically God made me do it. That goes into the realm of fantasy, and didn't even answer all the questions raised during the show (which I loved). When I buy the full DVD set someday I may never watch the Battlestar ending again.

I had the ending all thought out in my head before the second episode even aired. That is how pathetic this show was. I figured if they ran out of time and were facing the ax they could always say it was a VR simulation or something as they were probably bored astronauts on Mars in reality. Though I thought it before I saw it, I wouldn't have wanted to the the runner on this piece of doggy doo. Not that I think the BBC version is better, frankly I think all these "flashback" style time travel shows are crap.

I appreciate the fact that they provided closure on the show. If they had more time to provide some greater depth, I think the ending would have been more impactful. I do appreciate it and still loved the series. Thanks for the 17 eps.

I won't comment on whether the ending was good or bad--I've learned the hard way that a person's opinion of a work of art is very personal and should be respected and frankly I'm still debating that with myself. But I will point out two things: 1. The ending was consistent with what went before, in that there were clues that clearly pointed to this. 2. How come no one seems to notice a plethora of things in the last 5 minutes that indicate this may not be the full story either. For instance: It is illogical that they would come out of two plus years of deep sleep looking like totally refreshed cover models. It is illogical that *anyone* would create a mission with 4 men and one women, even if she is their military superior. It is unlikely (though not impossible) that one of the Obama daughters would be elected to President the very first year she was legally eligible for the position. And finally, the last image, of Gene Hunt's white loafer hitting the surface of Mars--symbolic or another layer of mystery.

I think EVERYONE that posted (and wrote the article) missed the biggest clue at the end of the show that the space ship is yet another dream, and Sam is really in 1973. They gave us one golden nugget with which they can bring back the show. As the foot in space attire steps off the space ship, it faded into 1973's fashion pant leg and shoe. Obviously, no person could survive with such attire on Mars and this leads me to believe that it is all yet another dream in Sam Tyler's mind. He will (with the green light to do another season), wake up in 1973, go back to work at the police station and still try to find out why he is in 1973. His Dad on the space ship aka, Gene Hunt had the same tattoos as the Dad in 1973. Even though he had been fighting with his father and they make up on the space ship, to dream that his father was such a horrid person in 1973, doesn't make sense. (Not even in the nonsense where so much doesn't make sense, that doesn't make sense. ) Sure, I can see where he would dream his dad was really his boss and they might quarrel from time to time, which they did but to create such a horrible person and make him his dad in a dream state? And what about the police chief's daughter that Sam slept with. Even though he wasn't his dad in 1973, he looked just like his dad. Wouldn't that be rather gross to imagine your dad had a daughter that you slept with? Yuck! Imagine trying to shake off that feeling all day after waking up. Or all month...
I believe the last few frames of the last episode were yet another clue into the dream state series, "Life on Mars." People made the same comparison and search for clues about David Bowie's band with the BBC version but it didn't really fly across the pond. I had, at first been wary of their redoing this series because the original was so perfect. But I think the Americans did a really good job of respecting the plot and I don't think they're finished.