The first episode of the American remake of Life On Mars has leaked to the Internet… and it sucks, but not for the reasons you might expect.
But first… a brief recap from Wikipedia: “Life On Mars tells the story of DCI Sam Tyler of the Greater Manchester Police, who, after being hit by a car in 2006, finds himself in the year 1973. There, he works for Manchester and Salford Police CID as a DI under DCI Gene Hunt. Over the course of the series, Tyler faces various culture clashes, most frequently regarding the differences between his modern approach to policing and the more traditional methods of his colleagues. Mixing the genres of science fiction and police procedural, the series centres around the ambiguity concerning Tyler’s predicament: it is unclear whether he is insane, in a coma, or if he really has travelled back in time”.
The original British series was incredible television, perhaps my favorite TV show of all time. My stomach turned when I heard that ABC was interested in an American remake of the show. I was conflicted: on the one hand, I didn’t want my favorite TV show “ruined” by a crappy American remake; on the other hand, I was happy that millions of people might be exposed to the awesomeness of the Life On Mars story.
So when the first episode leaked online a few days ago, I eagerly downloaded it… only to have major mixed feelings about the U.S. version of the show.
Have you ever been to Disney World? EPCOT? Disneyland? Disney does an incredible job at copying things, down to the seemingly last tiny detail. Many people have gone to the World Showcase at EPCOT and, in the heat of the Florida sun, almost convinced themselves that they’re really in England or Mexico or Japan. But yet, they’re something just “off” about the whole thing. Like Uncanny Valley, there’s just something that’s not quite right about the World Showcase. Even though most people could almost convince themselves that they’re in England… something isn’t quite right. It’s not the obvious stuff – the heat, the crowds of people speaking in American accents. There’s just an indefinable something that lets you know you’re looking at a forgery – a well made forgery, mind you – instead of the “real deal”.
And that’s exactly what the American Life On Mars is like. It’s a Disney-fied version of the original series. Although I have several specific complaints about the American version (which I’ll get to in a minute), there’s just something about the new version that simply doesn’t add up.
I guess my first specific complaint is about the CGI cityscapes. Look at the picture above… is it not 100% completely obvious that this person is standing in front of a green screen? The halination – the halo that appears around “real” people when they’re inserted into a digital landscape – is simply awful. It looks so bad, in fact, that it completely pulls you out of the story. There’s nothing worse than being completely immersed in a show, only to be jarred back into reality by awful CGI.