The hit show has travelled well from '70s Manchester to Manhattan on FX (Fridays at 10pm)
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
There's little in life more tedious than someone telling you about their dreams.
But tough, because I'm going to do it.
I have a recurring nightmare where I wake up in the early hours to find Harvey Keitel at the end of the bed, naked and grunting: 'I'm ready for fun.'
Then I wake up for real, whimpering.
So imagine my jitters at the US remake of Life On Mars (FX, Fridays at 10pm), where Harvey has taken the alpha caveman role of Gene Hunt, filled so admirably in the original by Philip Glenister.
Philip became an instant sex god. The same fate seems unlikely to befall Harvey.
He's one of those men who reach a certain age and appear to morph into old ladies.
And then there's his hair.
It's an unnatural shade of tan and has been artfully backcombed before the application of a whole can of Elnett.
It kind of makes sense though, because Harvey is an old hand at playing cops and villains - sometimes both at the same time - and is a proper '70s icon.
The role of reluctant time traveller Sam Tyler, played in the Manchester version by John Simm, has been taken by the altogether beefier Jason O'Mara.
The show is a faithful transplant of the original, even down to much of the dialogue.
It's placed firmly in its new home though when Sam comes round from the accident that's plunged him back to 1973 and sees the Twin Towers which were completed only two years before.
Just like the original the first episode had Sam and Gene solving a series of sex killings and it's likely the rest of the series will follow the plots of the original.
Some differences - New York Sam's apartment is nicer than Manchester Sam's grotty bedsit.
But who knew there was an American version of the Open University which Sam watches in the middle of the night for a nightmarish link to 2009?
Their test card wasn't as sinister as that one of ours with the little girl and the clown, mind.
The US show has as much loving period detail as the UK version. The clothes, music and pervading grimness of '70s New York is familiar to anyone addicted to films and TV shows of that time.
That's me, by the way.
I squealed with gleeful recognition when Sam switches on an episode of Cannon, the cop show with an enormously fat man in the lead role.
Only in the '70s could someone morbidly obese become a TV star.
So yes, it's mostly the same, but that's its charm.
Either it won't make any difference because you haven't the original.
Or like me, you're a Life On Mars and '70s NY cop show anorak.
Plus, it's fun to play spot the difference, listen to the great soundtrack - Bowie, Rolling Stones, The Who and The Sweet - and laugh at those sideburns all over again.
Life On Mars, FX, Fridays at 10pm
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