Life on Mars, US Version

Finally getting around to watching the pilot of “Life on Mars” (US version). 

So far it’s not horrible, but a bit more American Cop Show™ cliched.  The background music is annoying.  Hopefully it will better when they zoom back in time.

Some of the dialog is word for word the same as the UK version.

Ok, live editing:  the 1970’s scenery looks like crap.  Fake.  When they do a big cross-city pan, it just looks like a bad photo. 

I guess it’s the difference between L.A. in 1972 and L.A. in 2008.  In the UK version, Manchester in 2008 looks just like Manchester in 1972 :wink:   

I’m glad Harvey Keitel is going to play Gene Hunt, 'cause Colm Meaney doesn’t pull it off.  I keep expecting him to beam somebody down to the planet.  Havey Keitel will be awesome, I hope.

Anyway, this is the pilot I’m watching, I assume the actual series premier will be much different, since they’ve replaced a bunch of the characters.  They’re also going to be moving the show from L.A. to New York.

Just a few minutes into the series premier, and it’s a whole lot better than the pilot.  New York > L.A.  for sure.  Music is better too.

Dunno about Harvey Keitel yet.  Might be a bit too old. 

I have been watching the UK version now for a while. I record it and I always have a few episodes to catch up on. I kept the first episode of the UK version and have now watched it a couple of times.

The US version is pretty decent. And it was almost exactly the same as the first UK episode too. I thought it was going to be a little more cop show-centric from some of the adverts I saw of the show, but it was not as bad as I thought it might be.

The production is slightly higher and slicker in the US version and the soundtrack is good too. I like when he walked into that record store and said he bought his first Hall and Oates album there.

Be interesting to see how the next few episodes compare to the UK version. Will the story be about the same or will the writers veer off in some other completely different direction.

MiG - Seeing as I can see your UK Shows… Is the UK version worth the time downloading? Its not being screened yet in the UK, and I’m always too impatient to wait… Cant be any worse than what they did to Red Dwarf U.S. and Coupling U.S.

Is the US version of Little Britain being screened there?

[quote=“Grockle”]
MiG - Seeing as I can see your UK Shows… Is the UK version worth the time downloading? [/quote]

Yes, it’s worth downloading.  They only made 2 seasons of it, though.  Then followed it up with “Ashes to Ashes” which takes place in 1982.

[quote]
Its not being screened yet in the UK, and I’m always too impatient to wait… Cant be any worse than what they did to Red Dwarf U.S. and Coupling U.S.[/quote]

Ug.  Red Dwarf US was ugly.  But UK-to-US is not always bad, The Office US is great.

I’m not sure.  How could they have a US version of it anyway?  Is it Little America?

[quote=“VMS”]
Be interesting to see how the next few episodes compare to the UK version. Will the story be about the same or will the writers veer off in some other completely different direction.[/quote]

Well, the first episode was definitely better than the pilot.  I’m so glad they redid it.

Did you have the first US episode recorded?  If so, watch the moment when he is hit by the car (and travels back in time / goes into a coma / whatever).  There are a bunch of images flashed, just like the UK version – I think they’re going to follow a similar storyline.

Little America might be funny, but no, Little Britain USA is an HBO remake… same 2 people doing it, but based in the US… Just watched it and, well, I kinda laughed a couple of times, but they have gone more for shock value than anything else!

I ended up missing it-stupid cable tv in the place we’d rented for the long weekend!!

It seemed to be fairly popular with most of the people who bothered to tune in, at least the message boards I checked seemed to like it. Obviously they need to start veering away from the UK version at some point in the future-wonder if they can manage to keep viewers invested as long as the Brit version did (18 episodes) or if it’s going to wander off into “Lost” territory as time goes by…  :smiley:

www.tvtorrents.com

Well worth getting a membership and contributing,  It has running shows as well as old ( sometimes very old) shows.  It often has UK shopws on as well.  It is very easy to navigate.

I did watch the second episode and while I was happy that the writers have at least made some effort to make changes to the scripts, I found myself mostly bored. The music was pretty banal, Harvey Keitel makes a very uncharismatic and not overly memorable Gene Hunt and I ended up trying to think of a good rooftop for Sam.
The weird clues they tossed in (a robot??) to help muddy the waters as to what exactly happened to Sam were strange but since they cannot end the US series the same way they did the UK one, I’m guessing they are going to go down the road “Lost” has taken and just throw as much misdirection as possible.

By the end of the episode, I was sitting there idly trying to figure out a really, REALLY good rooftop for US-Sam and thinking that some things just don’t translate very well.

:imp: