There are very few things that have me cursing. As I posted before, Lana Lang is one of them. Another is someone completely missing the point. Actually Smallville completely missed the point of Lana Lang, and romance in fact. A romance is supposed to be between two equals. Superman's love for Lois Lane is a humanising factor, made more believable by Lois's forceful personality and attitudes.
Anyway back to my point. Life on Mars US. Living in the UK I get really irritated when Americans remake our popular fiction, missing the point entirely. Life on Mars was more than another police drama. It was a testimonial and homage to British police dramas of the gritty 70s.
In the 70's there was a rebellion against the the button up, smart and cool spy image of James Bond. His exact opposite. While on the surface these officers were the lowest of the low, swigging beer and whiskey like water and calling women "slags" at their core everything they did was for the public good. Locking up criminals after beating them to a bloody pulp. Unfortunately the US version missed this. Why, because they didn't have the Sweeny, they had Starsky and Hutch. Buddy cop dramas. Their history is nothing like ours, we didn't have Vietnam, Watergate or hippy peace protesters. We had Mods and Rockers. Stones Vs the Beetles and the British arts and music scene. We have nostalgia for that time. It was a cultural boom. Anyone in America have nostalgia for Vietnam?
So the premise is not only retreating what's been done but are going over a dark time in US history. can you make it worse? sure. Spoilers here but in the end they turned it into a holodeck malfunction on their way to mars. I'm not kidding, seriously. A holodeck malfunction. Forget the leap of faith or the ambiguous meaning of life lets just make it a holodeck. I'm getting rather peeved just remembering it.
The same sort of thing happened when they tried to remake Doctor Who over there. They changed it from a horror science adventure to a bog standard sci-fi action show.
Look why don't we just try and forget the whole idea of exporting shows over to America. They just don't get it, just send them the originals and let them keep it. After all the BBC aren't remaking Star Trek are they?
Here, one of my all time favourites just to clam me down.
Ahh the 80's they were cool either side of the pond!
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