'Life on Mars' Notes

Synopsis of ‘Life on Mars’

·        Sam Tyler, a DCI for the Greater Manchester Police, is hit by a car in 2006 trying to rescue his girlfriend.

·        Tyler awakens and finds himself in 1973, the year he was born.

·        Sam works for the commander Gene Hunt.

·        In 2006, Tyler is the top cop and always gets the job done efficiently, however in 1973, Hunt is the top cop however, both of them do things very differently.

Media Language within the title sequence

In the opening sequence we see Sam, get hit by a car and wake up in 1973. As well as him telling us this we can infer this from the old fashioned clothes and retro looking cars. We then see him enter the police office he works in (in the present day) however it looks very different to what he is used to it looking like. As he walks through the office doors, they close behind him perhaps reiterating the fact that he is trapped in 1973. As the title of the show appears on screen in a ‘tiled’ effect which was a cutting edge special effect in the 70’s, this was obviously included to give that retro-feel. We are then introduced to the character of Gene Hunt, we instantly see that Sam and Gene are binary oppositions in the way they go about things i.e. solve cases, handle criminals. In the title sequence they are even seen fighting with each other, it’s a love/hate relationship. We see Tyler and Hunt facing each other in the office, this tells us a lot about the relationship the two characters are going to have. In the opening sequence we see a case of iconography as Tyler holds up his police badge in pride or when we see the criminal wearing a balaclava, holding a shot gun.