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Life on Mars(TV show/series, 2006-2007)

FSK: 12+ years
| 1h per episode | Genres: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Science-Fiction & Fantasy

Scripted Reality in 2 seasons with 16 episodes

Life on MarsRating: 3.9/5 (with 122 votes) 720
Life on Mars is a British television series broadcast on BBC One between 9 January 2006 and 10 April 2007. It follows Sam Tyler (John Simm), a Manchester policeman in 2006 who wakes up after a car accident to discover that he has time-travelled to 1973, where he works the same job in the same location under the command of Detective Chief Inspector Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) while attempting to solve the mystery of what has happened to him. Life on Mars (named after David Bowie's song of the same name) and its sequel, Ashes to Ashes (also named after a David Bowie song), received acclaim for blending elements of mystery, police procedurals, supernatural drama, science fiction, and historical drama. It won two International Emmy Awards for Best Drama Series. An American adaptation was produced by ABC and ran for one season from October 2008 to April 2009, a Spanish adaptation was broadcast from April to June 2009, a Russian adaptation was broadcast in November 2012, a Czech adaptation was broadcast from January to March 2017, a South Korean adaptation began broadcasting in June 2018, and a Chinese ad... ()
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Poster of Life on Mars

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Awards & Nominations for Life on Mars

International Emmy Award for Best Drama Series International Emmy Award for Best Drama Series 2x British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series British Academy Television Award for Best Actor Writers Guild of America Award for Television: New Series

About Life on Mars

A detective chief inspector from 2006 is investigating a serial killer when he is knocked over by a speeding car. Waking up, he finds himself mysteriously transported back in time to 1973. Initially struggling to come to terms with his situation, he has to come to terms with the old-fashioned technology and attitude of the day, while figuring out how he came to be trapped in the past.

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Trailer for Life on Mars + Featurettes/Teaser/Clips

Life on Mars Trailer(Trailer, 0:40)

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Life on Mars Seasons and Episodes

02/13/2007Series 2 - 8 episodes
Sam learns that an operation is to be conducted on him in 2006 to try and revive him from his coma. However, he believes that to return to the twenty-first century, he has to betray his colleagues in 1973 — but can he regard them as imaginary, or are they real - at least for him?
#1 | 02/13/2007Episode 1
4.0/5 (with 4 votes)
Tyler has visions of someone disrupting his life support system in 2006, and encounters who he thinks is the same assailant in 1973, running a gambling syndicate and protection racket. Recognising the man as a killer he failed to stop in the future, Tyler is prepared to go to any lengths to make sure his life is not threatened and the man doesn't kill his original victim.
#2 | 02/20/2007Episode 2
3.8/5 (with 3 votes)
On an assignment to return a career safe breaker from prison for further questioning, Tyler, Ray and Chris are attacked by robbers and the man who they were taken in for questioning is broken out. Is a local gangster to blame, or is there more going on than meets the eye... specifically, was the crime actually arranged by Gene's old mentor? Meanwhile, Sam tries to break in the first black detective in the department, a man who will later become Sam's mentor when he first joins the police force.
#3 | 03/06/2007Episode 3
3.9/5 (with 4 votes)
The team receive a bomb warning, claiming the IRA has planted a car bomb in Manchester. Being from 2006, Sam realises the bomb warning reported doesn't fit with his understanding of IRA methods. However, when Sam's modern know-how fails and nearly kills Ray, the rest of the department shun his line of investigation to focus on an Irish socialist group. At the same time, Sam's visions of the future suggest that he may have suffered brain damage, affecting his higher reasoning, from having been in a coma for so long.
#4 | 03/13/2007Episode 4
3.9/5 (with 3 votes)
The body of a young woman is found in wasteland. The investigation takes the team to suburbia, where a local car dealer is throwing private parties, employing make-up girls from a local company to “help out” when the wife-swapping begins. Posing as married couple Tony and Cherie Blair, Sam and Annie infiltrate one of the parties, only to discover that it isn't as simple as they think.
#5 | 03/20/2007Episode 5
3.8/5 (with 3 votes)
The team investigates the abduction of a young woman and her daughter, who are being held prisoner by somebody who wishes the team to release a prisoner arrested on a murder charge a year ago. At the same time, Sam faces a life or death situation in 2006 when he thinks he has accidentally been given an overdose. As the deadline draws closer, Sam collapses into a deeper coma, leaving his colleagues to tackle the mystery on their own (Albeit using some of his earlier suggestions).
#6 | 03/27/2007Episode 6
3.7/5 (with 3 votes)
As heroin hits the streets of Manchester for the first time, CID and DCI Hunt want culprits for the smuggling, the dealing and ensuing violence, which becomes difficult when Annie is kidnapped by the smugglers. As Sam tries to get to the source of the influx of this deadly drug, he finds himself intractably drawn to a beautiful young woman who was witness to a heroin-related shooting... and who, he later realises, is the mother of his girlfriend in the future. At the same time, Sam's 'visions' reveal that his girlfriend has decided to stop visiting him in hospital, as she can't keep waiting for him to wake up.
#7 | 04/03/2007Episode 7
4.0/5 (with 3 votes)
A water-tight court case fails to put away a local gangster. Unable to cope with a guilty man walking free, DCI Hunt turns to alcohol but soon finds himself in a spot of bother. When it appears as though Hunt may have killed someone, it's up to Sam, torn between Gene and his replacement, a DCI who actually uses Sam's modern police techniques and vocabulary, to help him out.
#8 | 04/10/2007Episode 8
4.2/5 (with 3 votes)
Sam learns that an operation is to be conducted on him in 2006 to try and revive him from his coma. However, he believes that to return to the twenty-first century, he has to betray his colleagues in 1973 - but can he regard them as real or imagined?
01/09/2006Series 1 - 8 episodes
?Specials - 16 episodes

Additional Information

Official websites:
Production country: United Kingdom (UK)
Plays in: Manchester
Derivative works/Adaptions: "Life on Mars" (TV show/series, 2008-), "Dark Side of the Moon" (TV show/series, 2012-), "La chica de ayer" (TV show/series, 2009-), "Svět pod hlavou" (TV show/series, 2017-), "Life on Mars" (TV show/series, 2018-)
Original language: English (EN)
Spoken languages: English (EN)
Translated into 16 languages: Bulgarian (BG), Bosnian (BS), Czech (CS), German (DE), Greek (EL), English (EN), Spanish (ES), French (FR), Hebrew (HE), Italian (IT), Korean (KO), Dutch (NL), Russian (RU), Turkish (TR), Ukrainian (UK), Chinese (Mandarin) (ZH)
Status: Ended
First episode released on: 01/09/2006
Last episode released on: 04/10/2007
Appearing Characters: Ray Carling, Gene Hunt, Sam Tyler, Chris Skelton, Annie Cartwright
Alternative titles in other countries (from previews, ads etc.):
"huoxingshenghuo"
"火星生活BBC"
"Life on Mars: Gefangen in den 70ern"
"חיים על מאדים"

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Other TV shows/series with this title: Life on Mars (US, 2008), Life on Mars (KR, 2018)

WatchPlayStream ID: SHOWS:2295, Added: 05/11/2018, Last updated: 03/23/2024