Throughout the course of Life on Mars, Sam's uncertainty is reinforced by frequent paranormal phenomena, such as hearing voices and seeing images from 2006 on radios, telephones, and televisions. Content-wise, the novels begin to explore the continuity gap between Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, picking up approximately where the first TV series leaves off; but it is not necessary to know both series to enjoy the books.

Each individual episode has, at its core, a police case that needs to be solved, and the path to doing so has Hunt on one side and Sam on the other, arguing over how things should be handled, eventually meeting somewhere in the middle. Majors, an actor best known for his ABC TV series of the '60s, '70s, and '80s (particularly "The Six Million Dollar Man"), gets shown around the 125th Precinct set by Jason O'Mara. I hate it when that happens, and even though I’m not a fan of Deep Purple, I’m still against it on principle.Suspects are regularly roughed up and, depending on their mood, witnesses are antagonized or buttered up. The music soundtrack, even with the song alterations definitely helps make the show, and generally the audio experience for Life on Mars is quite rosy. Life on Mars comes with a bevy of special features, but surprisingly, most of them concern Series 1.

In one episode, solving a football-related murder reminds him of going to games with his father and allows him to help another young boy cope with losing his old man; in the first season finale, this comes around again, when Sam actually learns the true reason his father left him and his mother without a word, and he spends most of the episode trying to keep his dad in town. TV Interview for BBC1 Val meets the VIPs (Too inexperienced to be Prime Minister) | Margaret Thatcher Foundation". Life on mars mixes cop drama, science fiction, mystery and psychological thriller elements perfectly. He eventually comes to realise that he has become used to, and enjoys, the 1970s, seeing it as his "real world".Being of his generation, I was never really a David Bowie fan, but the lyrics of Life on Mars and the way he delivered the song was always so ear-catching to me. It’s a nice detailed piece, with some interesting information to be gleaned, not least of which is the tightrope that had to be walked when it came to the seventies’ political incorrectness, which had a greater prominence in the show this time around.