If there’s one problem season 1 of Life on Mars has, it’s its inconsistent tone. You’ve got a cop stuck, either in the past or in a coma (or possibly both). He fears he’s going mad. And then you’ve got madcap chases, fish-out-of-water comedy, jokey side characters and music that signals half the time that this is just supposed to be a rollicking good time. Which is it, gov? Are we supposed to feel for Sam Tyler and his predicament, or are we being taken on a ride? Either aspect of the series, as enjoyable as they may be in isolation, tend to hamper the other.
It’s easy enough to see which side running after a small-time drug dealer, naked but for his bathrobe, fits in with. The episode quickly veers into darker territory, though, as Billy Kemble, the college drug dealer, is put in a cell with a hardened criminal, to soften him up and make him talk… but Kemble doesn’t come out alive. At first, it seems obvious: Albert Collins, Billy’s cellmate, roughed up the kid, which brought on a coronary. Open and shut case. Except the police is culpable, having put the two men in one cell to begin with, for no good reason.
For Gene Hunt, it’s pretty simple: Kemble didn’t need to deal drugs, so it was his fault to be in that cell. The police wasn’t the one administering a beating, so it wasn’t them. And if internal regulations say otherwise, well, then the coppers need to stick together and keep mum. Embelish the truth to the point where it hardly resembles the actual events. “I’m protecting my team,” Hunt argues. “One falls, we all do,” but Sam isn’t convinced.
But then the coroner’s report hints at another cause of death: not a beating, however bad, but ingestion of a high dose of cocaine, aggravating a heart condition. Again, Hunt jumps to the handy conclusion; Billy dealt drugs, so he took drugs, so he killed himself. QED, etcetera, etcetera. Which is where Sam’s 21st century knowledge comes in handy: apparently, cocaine is most likely to cause cardiac arrest during the first hour after it’s ingested. Not hours after Kemble’s arrest. Now how did the man get his hands on cocaine after having all his possessions confiscated on his arrest?
Sam’s adamant: the only way to get to the bottom of this is a full investigation, even if it means finding dirt on a fellow copper. “If we can’t police ourselves, how are the public supposed to trust us?” Reluctantly, Hunt agrees to an investigation, dumping it on Sam – who has other problems as well: he keeps hearing doctors’ voices, talking about tests and insisting that Sam has to help them if they’re to bring him out of his coma. “Get me out of here,” he screams, in frustration at both of the situations he’s in: stuck in the ’70s and stuck in a hopelessly corrupt police force.
Every one of Sam’s steps is resisted by the other coppers on the station, who increasingly see him as a muckraker. Still, as much due to his stubbornness (he has a hunch that solving the case might get him back home) as to the feelings of guilt several of his fellow officers have, Sam finds more and more evidence that things don’t tally. And everything points at Ray Carling, the man who’s been dismissive of Sam’s efforts from the very first. A tape finally proves that Ray forcefed the confiscated cocaine to Billy Kemble, to make him talk. Doing what Gene had taught him: getting results at any price. Even if it means killing a man.
“These lads are made in my image. But they’ve never learnt where to draw the line, and it scares the shit out of me,” Hunt tells Sam, leaving the decision with him. Does he turn in Carling, dealing a serious blow to morale? Does he destroy the evidence in the name of loyalty? And which of the two might get him back to his own time?
“What am I supposed to do with this,” asks the Superintendent as Sam hands him the tape. “Listen to it. Act upon it.” “My understanding is, it’s been dealt with internally,” comes the answer as the Super calmly destroys the tape. Ray Carling’s demoted, but there’s no investigation. No charge of murder or manslaughter. No justice, just a slap on the wrist (although admittedly a pretty hard slap). “You can’t change the world, Sam,” Gene says, with weary resignation. “Only learn how to survive in it.” “I don’t give up that easily,” Sam replies. “Good,” Gene says.
Apart from some minor inconsistencies at the beginning, this episode is perhaps one of the best of season 1. While Gene pretty much descends into a parody of himself in season 2, he’s portrayed as much more ambiguous throughout the first season. The last couple of minutes of the episode highlight this ambiguity well: Hunt knows that Ray’s committed a crime that can’t just be let go, and he knows that he shares in the responsibility of this crime, but at the same time he’s not going to rock the boat too much. Within his little, smoky fiefdom, and with the help of fall guy Sam (who conveniently takes the blame as a backstabbing colleague), he can take some tentative steps towards justice… but he knows that if he goes too far, he has no chance of getting away scot-free himself. Shame the series insists on reducing him to the Gene Genie, vanquisher of all things PC, because it’s the more complex, ambiguous Gene Hunt that is vastly more interesting.
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Matt K. is a survivor of academia. He's fanatical about good TV and movies. He lives in Switzerland, which means that he gets his chosen drug mostly in the form of boxed DVD sets. You can read more of his musings on TV, life, movies, books and video games at http:\\goofybeast.wordpress.com. 
