And she's hooked to the silver screen

Life on Mars (?)

I'll admit it. I am totally obsessed with this show (BBC 1, Mondays at 9pm, but hurry cos there's only two more epiosdes to go!)

For those people who are, quite literally, Martians, it goes something like this: 2006 copper gets hit by a car & finds him self knocked slap-bang into the middle of 1973, nylon shirt and all. He is simultaneously existing in a coma in 2006, and is therefore kept pretty damned busy negotiating the minefield of questionable ethics and rule bending of the Manchester Met of thirty odd years ago, answering phone calls from 2006 via unplugged phones, fending off the (frankly terrifying and satanic) test card girl who seems hell-bent on talking him into death whenever he falls asleep (just as soon as she's shafted that pesky clown by blocking his third nought on the diagonal) and contemplating showing his night-stick to the comely WPC Annie. Golly.

And as if all that weren't enough, there's the curiously monikered, beer-swilling, bird-leering, suspect-bashing DCI Gene Hunt, a prehistoric behemoth in bell bottoms & y-fronts who is to forensic science what I am to, err, forensic science. (I secretly think he's Sam's dad, but that's another story). Oh, and is it very very wrong that I actually find him far more attractive than the rather anodyne, by-the-book, green tea drinking (probably) Sam? I swear I can smell the Brut.....

How do I love thee, Life on Mars; let me count the ways: I love the writing (funny, accurate, sharp, suspenseful), the characterisation, the acting, the narrative, i love 1973 (the year I was born, which means that sadly whilst Sam may wander past a boyhood version of himself I'll never be spotted moseying past in my pram, as the time frame apears to be in the early half of the year, if references to the Grand National & the Manchester Derby are flagging realtime, so I am not yet born. And didn't ever live in Manchester. Hey ho...). Most of all I love the music. 1973 saw two of my favourite albums from a favoured artist (David Bowie: Aladdin Sane, featuring the song that changed my life, The Jean Genie, & Hunky Dory, the latter bearing the title track of the show) , and each episode sports a tie-dyed rainbow of rockign tunes by the lies of The Who, Thin Lizzy, Roxy Music, Cream. Ooh, and the trailer! Immigrant Song by the Zep, never the wrong choice!

Well done, Auntie Beeb, with Life on Mars and Doctor Who you are truly spoiling us with delectable TV drama. Now if only we could find a way for Sam to bump into the Doctor, eh?

Blockbuster indeed.