Random Fandom

In part entertainment missionary, and in part to alter the general woe-is-me course of my blog I shall now be instituting a new Thursday feature I have decided to call random fandom. I will recommend to my rather meager audience a television show, cd, book, or other such item based on my personal enjoyment of such. That's where the fandom fits. The random is basically a cue to the fact that my endorsement will generally have nothing to do with what is new or what has recently gained a popular buzz. I will merely recommend what has recently captured my (rapt) attention.

This week's random recommendation is truly connected to the missionary zeal I mentioned earlier. Life on Mars is an interesting and well written show with a great soundtrack. I discovered it one night on BBC America while indulging my love of an older comedy show they run called Father Ted .

In the show, present day detective inspector Sam Tyler is hit by a car and wakes up a detective in the 1970s, almost inexplicably. He works to solve crimes all the while clashing with old-school boss and detective Gene Hunt. Tyler is politically correct and more of a CSI-type detective who always attempts to dot his i's, cross his t's, and respect prisoner's rights. Hunt is from another mold- he punches first and asks questions later.

As Tyler attempts to fit into this department with his new-style detective strategies, he also occaisionally gets visited by a girl inside his television, and hears voices and machines from what appears to be in his hospital room. Is he merely in a coma? Is he really back in time? Is he a looney? At present, the audience does not yet know. The series is somewhat a mystery/cop show with a cultural and personality clash between offbeat partners, but the coma lends an aspect of the supernatural that lends it even more depth.

The last episode of this series (British television runs in somewhat a different fashion than U.S. tv, many shows are at most 12 episodes long for each season, called a series, which in my opinion cuts through some of the filler that appears in a 22 episode season on U.S. tv.) will show next week, but I am sure they will continue to show repeats.

There is also news that David E. Kelley has picked up the American rights to remake the show. Hopefully the series will turn out more like the American Office instead of the hopefully forgotten American Coupling.