Britainology 98: Life On Mars (2006)
Added 2025-01-27 11:24:17 +0000 UTCUPDATE: something went wrong with the file export when converting from WAV to MP3, and it added some very strange noises. We've fixed it and have re-uploaded. Sorry about that!
For this month's first Britainology, we're discussing the 2000s TV series Life On Mars, or 'what happens when you get hit by a car that makes you travel through time and it becomes the early '70s.' But we wind up liking it more than disliking it, and spend some time exploring what it's like to encounter real, unpolished representations of what things were like in bygone eras.
Comments
Loved this show so much I even watched the American remake. It was... not as good, but it included a scene in which the (white) cop protagonist was being held hostage by knockoff Black Panthers and impressed them by pretending to come up with "Ice Ice Baby" off the top of his head.
Luca
2025-02-10 06:48:56 +0000 UTCLife on Mars is an iseki
The Beak TM
2025-02-09 11:45:47 +0000 UTCSeconded
h tt
2025-02-07 11:58:48 +0000 UTCNot mid-90s but i drive a 2001 accord, and am gonna keep driving that shit till it dies
Julia Martin
2025-01-31 15:57:05 +0000 UTChow about a whole new podcast for people who admire and romanticize cops with the John Wayne Gacy dancers
MI
2025-01-31 13:21:41 +0000 UTCObsessed with Jihad Jeeves and Wooster, would love to listen to like a full hour of just that
Hannah Blumenfeld
2025-01-31 00:36:05 +0000 UTCThere's a really interesting British crime show from the 70s, called Gangsters. Shot on location in Birmingham, it has a cool filmic style and goes out of its way to portray the nastiness of the setting.
BarFly
2025-01-30 22:25:14 +0000 UTCThe return of Nate's Uncle's Inscrutable Homophobic Comic
BarFly
2025-01-30 21:53:54 +0000 UTCHow about a Britainology on the cultural elements that gave rise to Andrew Wakefield?
MI
2025-01-30 13:10:53 +0000 UTCDon't see how you can think of them as separate continuities when Ashes to Ashes explicitly references Life on Mars, but clearly you think heaven is a pub in Manchester.
Andrew Davis
2025-01-30 04:04:50 +0000 UTCThere’s a scene in the later show where the cast of coppers give Thatcher a standing ovation on her reelection, so we can’t say it isn’t true to life
FR
2025-01-29 17:18:14 +0000 UTCThe sidebar about various homophobic epithets took me out because Gene Hunt actually has a monologue at one point describing another character which is burned into my brain and is pretty much just a list of old timey homophobic epithets, including fudge packer and uphill gardener. There’s also an episode where he describes a suspect as ‘faker than a tr*nny’s fanny’. An alarming proportion of the memetic quotes I can remember from this show involve slurs in some way. I have an unpleasant feeling that the thrill of hearing various old timey slurs was a significant part of the show’s appeal, and I almost certainly had at least one of these quotes on my Facebook profile as a teenager.
lousullivan.bf
2025-01-29 12:12:39 +0000 UTCI too think about Butler Ian Jihad all of the time. Would watch the entirety of Jihad and Wooster
h tt
2025-01-29 12:12:28 +0000 UTCHard disagree with Nate on Me and You and Everyone We Know which is, in fact, good
James
2025-01-29 09:12:10 +0000 UTCAsheville local. I’ll be on the lookout lol
Scott Taylor Fletcher
2025-01-28 17:35:01 +0000 UTCah, the classic little landlordism them, if only WE could go back but YOU would be doing all the work. Got it, in my American brain Celtic is more pre-Roman British Isles association. I just chimed in because I'm not sure the whole luxury automated communism thing is going to work out, so I think articulating the difference between farmers and artisans who both do work and own their own land as opposed to "farmers" who are just landlords is worthwhile distinction since someone will still have to produce food in the future, but I'm rambling now.
jamin
2025-01-28 14:27:29 +0000 UTCI'm not entirely sure to what extent crofting is still a Thing but the crofts absolutely were owned by a landlord, not the tenants; the nostalgia absolutely is in my experience a 'wow if only we could go back to the good old days when men were men and we all farmed 20 hours a day' thing, not a 'I would like to own my own land' thing. Also, to be clear, I meant 'Celtic' as in the broadly understood 'Celtic' parts of the world (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Mann, Cornwall), not actual ethnic Celts.
marilyn
2025-01-28 14:06:36 +0000 UTCWasn't crofting a result of the land clearances long after the Celts were gone or I am off base here? I would assume the appeal of modern crofting would be the ability to own some land of one's own.
jamin
2025-01-28 14:03:02 +0000 UTCI like how the British equivalent of an anime isekai truck is a dirty vauxhall cavalier
Andromeda
2025-01-28 12:43:13 +0000 UTCI’m surprised that neither Milo or Nate mentioned the US remake with Harvey Keitel as Gene Hunt.
Robert Greensmith
2025-01-28 10:14:25 +0000 UTCCame here to say this - absolutely right, and the same reason that you hear prestige music on Homes Under The Hammer
Josh L
2025-01-28 08:36:22 +0000 UTCtough but fair
Shivvy
2025-01-28 07:41:42 +0000 UTCWhen his backstory episode confirmed he's supposed to be a Londoner I laughed out loud. But at least he's entertaining! Frenchie otoh, just pure painful.
Stu Palmer
2025-01-28 07:31:32 +0000 UTCWhen Nate says "it's not quite like that, it's not like a Hideo Kojima story" does he mean Haruki Murakami? Or what Kojima thing is like "in a cop story you get hit by a car that takes you back through time"?
zona
2025-01-28 06:06:53 +0000 UTCI don't think there's much to get out of modern Who but like a Pertwee-Baker-Davison threefer could be interesting for their different places in British popular culture and the different kinds of Britishness they embody
who ate all my cum
2025-01-28 05:54:21 +0000 UTCThis kind of realism reminds me a lot of Babylon Berlin, a German police series for which the producers somehow got the millions that were needed to create a perfect reproduction of 1920 Germany, so that the characters can investigate stuff like secret rearmement efforts to avoid the terms of the treaty of Versailles 😆. Honestly, the best TV series ever produced in Germany, maybe even Europe
Anggg
2025-01-28 05:29:57 +0000 UTCDid Milo/Russian speakers in the chat watch Anora? Thoughts?
Shivvy
2025-01-28 04:47:11 +0000 UTCI forgot Butler Ian entirely so glad to have him back
Shivvy
2025-01-28 04:40:34 +0000 UTCas a native EN speaker/FR learner it’s easy to ignore Frenchie by focusing on whatever it is Karl is doing, bc even as a yank it’s wild as a hell
Shivvy
2025-01-28 04:39:16 +0000 UTCI feel like it's basically too obvious lol but on a long enough timeline they're bound to. Myself I remember watching basically all of 10 and almost all of 11 then dropping off, then recently watching Blink and being *appaled* at the dialogue, it was almost a parody of how twitter comedians do Marvel Patter. I guess it suffers a lot from the Seinfeld Effect where it pioneered a genre that later on became overblown and backlashed
etienne
2025-01-28 03:21:09 +0000 UTCAlso November should realistically be on this one
Erin Taylor
2025-01-28 01:07:33 +0000 UTCAlso - and I like John Simm, I think he's undeniably an excellent character actor - I think Drake has a much more compelling dynamic with Hunt, and Hawes is a much more engaging lead in a lot of ways.
RipleyInSpace
2025-01-27 23:28:33 +0000 UTC"I have a gun in my purse, just in case anyone's gay" is a fucking all-timer
RipleyInSpace
2025-01-27 22:56:09 +0000 UTCBeing french listening to him make my brain glitch... He sounds like a french speaking english but with french words...
Régis
2025-01-27 22:51:04 +0000 UTCYou cannot talk about Gene Hunt and euphemisms for homosexuality without citing this Life on Mars scene https://youtu.be/Sw2HT6tgSys?si=r05ICeiUeqCjk7aL
Liam Danagher
2025-01-27 22:35:38 +0000 UTCI can't get this melody out of my head. And I can't stop thinking about Riley. https://youtu.be/eRH7YSwl3xc?t=1087
En Bee
2025-01-27 21:42:59 +0000 UTCehh, it's easy to think of them as separate continuities, and A2A has a lot of enjoyable stuff
weronika mamuna
2025-01-27 21:01:03 +0000 UTCthe problem with that idea is that surely they’d have to watch, like Rose (2005) and also some random episode from the 80s and also one that’s actually good from the reboot (not that the entire 2005 s1 doesn’t capture the essence of RTD Dr Who)
Nina
2025-01-27 20:49:13 +0000 UTCOkay now you've triggered some early-2000s LJ/tumblr fandom brainrot in me, so I gotta ask: have you guys ever done a Dr Who Britainology? If no, are you planning to?
Suggestive Cacti
2025-01-27 20:38:46 +0000 UTCGreat observation about the PSP. Nostalgia gets in the way of the reality. Come back a generation further, and you're using a pencil to rewind audio cassettes. That was (one of) our PSP
Cormac
2025-01-27 20:34:12 +0000 UTCSuperintendent Roman Jakobson issuing orders to PC Unmarked and WPC Marked
Jack Fennell
2025-01-27 17:49:02 +0000 UTCshame on you guys for not inviting Hussein on to talk about a British Isekai
William
2025-01-27 17:30:44 +0000 UTCthe producers of the Sopranos really understood the deep-seated need for lily white WASPs to do their loudest and most embarrassing central casting italian american impressions in public. 20 years later, and they still think that's a personality, truly amazing
MI
2025-01-27 17:18:57 +0000 UTCUgh no... special place in hell for any cop show that borrows its title from a Bowie song for relevance. It's 2025 and rape kits are still crumbling into dust inside of evidence lockers, but at least we're completely cured of that awful 1970s sexism
MI
2025-01-27 16:50:38 +0000 UTCOne difference I think is that English twee has a 'jolly good, stiff upper lip' paternalistic vibe about it, whereas Scottish twee is very much this infuriating 'RETVRN to the glens, we must all become countryside artisans' thing. If you visit touristy places in Scotland, for instance, you will likely see some establishment with the word 'croft' or 'crofter' in the name. I have yet to understand why a peculiar Celtic form of brutal landlordism is so nostalgic to so many people.
marilyn
2025-01-27 16:31:09 +0000 UTCIf you think English or American tweeness is bad, you haven't encountered the truly cursèd canon that is Scottish twee, which consists largely of plush Loch Ness Monster and Highland cow toys in tourist gift shops, insisting on calling New Years 'Hogmanay', wanking over 'Rabbie' Burns, pasting tartan everywhere, replying to people with '*English' when they talk derogatorily about the British, and overusing the word 'wee'. It's very tied up in the politics of Scottish nationalism in the same way that English twee feels tied up with Continuity Remain and Lib Dem-ism, and is absolutely a major reason I now believe Scottish nationalism to be total horseshit lol
marilyn
2025-01-27 16:22:40 +0000 UTCI would not recommend the sequel series (Ashes to Ashes) if you at all enjoyed Life on Mars, unless you have fandom brain and want to know what actually happened.
Andrew Davis
2025-01-27 15:40:56 +0000 UTCOmg speaking about bad (foreign) language use... Frenchie from The Boys *cannot* speak French. Like come on man you had ONE JOB. Even his "hon hon hon I am Ferennncchh" accent is appalling.
Stu Palmer
2025-01-27 15:00:07 +0000 UTCWas listening to this in the car when I was passed by a pristine Mk2 Ford Escort 🤯
Mark Chickenf1sh
2025-01-27 14:59:38 +0000 UTCTea-sekai?
Ijon Tichy
2025-01-27 14:41:26 +0000 UTCI remember him being described once as the kind of atavistic monster who could only have existed in Thatcher’s Britain
Cat Mara
2025-01-27 13:54:50 +0000 UTCI've been rewatching The Wire and was surprised at how jarring the Russian language was in the few scenes it appeared in season 2. For such an amazing show, they are speaking utter nonsense. A show that I remember getting it very right is the Sopranos. Will have to check out the Americans at some point. Thanks for another amazing episode!
Serkles
2025-01-27 13:35:46 +0000 UTCMy understanding is that because of the bbc's flat agreement with the music industry (at least at the time), they would not have spent a lot of money on the soundtrack. This is why a lot of shows not intended for international sales get licensed music that would otherwise be unattainable. This is why for example hitchhiker's guide originslly just used jmj's oxygene in full as a soundtrack, which was scrubbed when sold international
Nat O'Connor
2025-01-27 13:22:15 +0000 UTCI appreciate this isn't to the pod's taste, but John Simm is also most well-known for being the first proper incarnation of the Master in the reboot of Doctor Who (technically preceded by Derek Jacobi for all of about 5 minutes).
Leo Curtis
2025-01-27 13:15:32 +0000 UTCJihad and Wooster is going to be in my brain for a while now
Joe Zebedee
2025-01-27 13:03:43 +0000 UTCAs for the soundtrack - the BBC have a blanket music agreement with the industry where they're basically allowed to use anything in their programming, with certain conditions. That's why Adam Curtis is able to score his documentaries in the way he does
Juliet
2025-01-27 12:51:58 +0000 UTCJames Anderton was the police chief in Manchester - a friend of Margaret Thatcher who notoriously said gay people and sex workers were "swirling around in a cesspit of their own making" at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis. Several of the Manchester bands besides the Happy Mondays referenced him - there's a line in 'Hit the North' by The Fall about how 'cops can't catch criminals' but 'they're not too bad, they talk to God', and The Passage talked about him a lot, notably in 'Mr Terror, Chief of Police'. His daughter turned out to be a lesbian so probably God thought he deserved smiting
Juliet
2025-01-27 12:50:52 +0000 UTCBring back the noise
A sudden absence of bees
2025-01-27 12:29:00 +0000 UTCCould this be a British Isekai?
DrawingGardi
2025-01-27 12:18:31 +0000 UTCIn Ireland female police officers were called Bean Garda - woman guard. Nurses were also called bean altra (woman nurse) despite the fact that nurse made up the vast majority of nurses
Seán
2025-01-27 12:05:16 +0000 UTCAt 1:45, I travelled into an alternate reality where I was listening to this podcast while being depressed. I didn't pay extra for this, please send me back.
Dovah
2025-01-27 11:41:20 +0000 UTCalso, v fond of this show, the first scene he has in the seventies was filmed a street over from my grandparents house
Theodora
2025-01-27 11:32:05 +0000 UTCfeel slightly insane, what was the terrifying screech around 1:45
Theodora
2025-01-27 11:31:34 +0000 UTC1:50 saund warming
Iln Nico
2025-01-27 11:30:51 +0000 UTCLife on Mars is honestly so good it's my go-to 'I'm I'll and wanna watch something' show
Riley
2025-01-27 11:29:48 +0000 UTCfwiw my hot take is that ashes to ashes is better because more conceptual and unhinged
Nina
2025-01-27 11:29:11 +0000 UTCnever felt more stalked and also terrified to hear a single bad thing about john simm or this show.
Nina
2025-01-27 11:27:45 +0000 UTCi am sorry — I started rewatching life on mars for comfort *yesterday*
Nina
2025-01-27 11:27:22 +0000 UTC
