Dan Dare (2007) #2

Dan Dare 2

Writer Garth Ennis starts distinguishing what makes Dan Dare different this issue as Dan and Digby get underway with their mission to save the galaxy. Or at least the human colonists. Though the humans and some of the alien race, the Treens, live together on some planets.

The issue opens with Dan and Digby reunited, on their way to meet up with the fleet. They’re onboard the ship from last issue, commanded by Sub-Lieutenant Christian, who gave the order to retreat, meaning hers was the only ship (and only crew) to survive. Apparently, the boys have been talking shit about lady Christian behind her back, which Digby tells Dan, so Dan reassures her she made the right call. Even if the boys are also wondering how old-school Dan Dare will be able to save today.

Dan quickly gets the opportunity to show his style too. They intercept a distress signal, and while their orders say to ignore it and meet up with the fleet, Dan countermands; you never ignore a distress signal.

They find a colony with missing colonists. The humans think it’s the aliens, the aliens say half the missing people are aliens, the local constabulary says they’re all a bunch of drunk miners who go missing all the time. Only, of course, it turns out to be something else, something tying into the main plot.

It’s a good issue. Maybe Gary Erskine’s faces are occasionally rushed, like he did them last, but it adds to the very British charm. Ennis works his ass off on the dialogue; you can just hear Digby’s accent (without resorting to phonetic spelling). Dan Dare feels finished but not slick. There’s a personality to the creators’ collaboration.

We also get to check in with the Prime Minister and former Dan Dare sidekick Jocelyn. Is it sidekick or companion? Anyway, it initially seems like Jocelyn’s the focus of the subplot, but it turns out to be the Prime Minister. Or at least they’re halfsies at this point; we’ll see going forward.

Dan Dare’s ramping up real quick. Ennis is full speed ahead.

Dan Dare (2007) #1

Dan Dare 1

Dan Dare’s all about the reassuring, calming presence of the capable colonialism and patriarchy (i.e., the British Empire). I have a feeling it’s going to get even more interesting once Anglophiliac Dan Dare returns to active duty.

The original series—the British Buck Rogers—dates back to the fifties, and writer Garth Ennis keeps with the mid-century British colonial mindset, just in the future. I can’t wait for the King or Queen to show up.

So, former space hero Dan Dare has retired to seclusion in a recreation of the British villages of his youth. The originals are presumably all gone because the Americans and Chinese nuked each other; the British had a shield to protect them. Instead of sticking around to help out with the Cursed Earth, the Brits took to colonizing space, presumably running into an evil alien race and getting into space fights.

There’s been peace long enough for Dan and his sidekick, Digby, to retire. Their Girl Friday from back in the day has gone into public office, so we’re not far away from when the original five-year mission ended. It’s an “Old Man Dan Dare” series, a Garth Ennis specialty; only it’s very British and not grim and gritty. Artist Gary Erskine thoughtfully updates mid-century sci-fi designs and keeps it all very English. Even when the Prime Minister is visiting an asteroid on his way to ask Dan for help, you can imagine them having tea and biscuits.

Erskine’s art is good. There are a handful of places he’s in a hurry (Dan Dare’s from Virgin Comics, which barely survived long enough to publish the whole series), but it’s good. Besides some sci-fi space action and Dan walking his adorable dogs, most of the issue is talking heads. Digby and the former Girl Friday having a chitchat on a space station, the Prime Minister and Dan having a philosophical debate about England’s place in the world (running it, if Dan Dare has a say). Erskine does well with all that talking.

Ennis does really well writing it too. Even though the Prime Minister is a dipshit, Dan’s at least a colonialist, if not a monarchist, if not a fascist. It’s going to be interesting to see how Ennis does this character development.

The ending cliffhanger’s solid, while the story is basically a combination of Star Trek 1 and 2 first acts. Got to get the captain back, best destiny, and all that business. Dan Dare’s off to an ace start.

X Isle (2006) #5

X Isle 5

X Isle ends worse than expected. The screenplay or treatment adaptation got to the point where the original writer was hoping the director would love to do an Aliens but robots sequence. Instead, in the comic medium, it goes from discovering the evil robots with tentacles who are actually just doing their job (zookeeping) to the alien nav computer revealing all the secrets and someone saying the robots are getting closer. It’s awful comics, which is too bad since this issue’s got the first time artist Greg Greg Scott gets to do an actual comic page and not (at best) a movie adaptation.

When the robots wake up and start collecting the loose animals (including invading humans), one has a cute but cruel scene. But with word balloons and motion implied between panels and reaction shots. Oh, Scott does reaction shots other places this issue, but they’re between two indistinguishable white men. Tim Allen and someone dramatic or Ashton Kutcher and someone dramatic, playing against type, maybe. Ashton is whining on about how coming to save Tim Allen’s daughter got Sam Jackson killed last issue, and now it’s going to get Ashton killed this issue. Tim Allen tells him to man up or something so they can rescue the obnoxious daughter, who’s fighting little monsters who want to eat her and talking about how she needs to live to lose her virginity.

Every line of dialogue is terrible in this issue. Maybe co-writer Michael A. Nelson just gave up. Hopefully, he just gave up, and this dialogue isn’t supposed to be good work. The art’s not bad overall, but it’s not impressive. Besides that robot sequence, those two pages were better art than the rest of the book combined. For a moment, I thought it was going to get good. It reminded me of the Lost in Space movie, and I was thinking, you know, it’d be better than whatever they’re going to do.

What’s so strange about X Isle is it’s a lousy spec script. It’s a bad treatment. But it’s targeting a Roland Emmerich-type who wants to cash in on “Lost” being a hit on TV. But not Roland Emmerich because it’s relatively low budget. It’s like a Sci-Fi movie spec script, actually.

Maybe I’d have watched it with Bruce Campbell in the lead? As Tim Allen?

Otherwise.

It’s pretty bad. X Isle’s pretty, pretty bad.

Paris (2005-2022)

Paris

The love story at the heart of Paris could take place anywhere. But it also can't take place anywhere but Paris. This collection emphasizes the Paris setting, with artist Simon Gane doing a new visual prologue of the city waking up. The birds are chirping, the lovers are waking (or already busy), and the city is vibrant and alive.

Paris collects a four-issue series, plus the prologue to the original collection, plus this new prologue. Gane does four double-page spreads moving through the city before a single page introducing the protagonist, Juliet. Though it helps if you know to look for her because Paris is full of life, full of people.

The next prologue (the original collection's prologue) follows Juliet on her way to school. She's in art school, drinks coffee, smokes cigarettes, and loves Paris. It also introduces her love interest, Deborah, having a very different experience in Paris. She's sequestered in Hotel Anglais, her maiden aunt chaperoning and programming their Parisian visit. It's just a couple-page introduction, Deborah looking longingly at the city she's missing, but the moment does a bunch to set her up.

The collection proper—issues as chapters—begins with Juliet in class, listening to her blowhard instructor, and getting a commission for a portrait painting. Juliet has to do portrait paintings of young ladies because fathers (and chaperones) don't want male artists staring long enough to paint. Andi Watson's script quickly sets up the ground situation (what's really impressive is how well Gane's able to transition from a relaxed, visual-first pace to rapid-fire exposition). Juliet's got a male friend at the art school, Gerard, who can't shut up about his jazz and mad crushes on her. She's from the United States (New York) and can't afford her tuition without the commissions. She lives with Paulette, a revolutionary who has to hand wash (and hang dry) all her lingerie at the apartment because they're too delicate for the laundromat.

Both Paulette and Gerard are French and speak a mix of French and English to Juliet. There's a translation guide at the end of the book, but it's mostly unnecessary. One might miss some occasional details, but they always come through either in English dialogue or thanks to visual references.

Juliet goes to the portrait sitting, assuming her subject, Deborah, will be the same terrible blue blood she's always painting. After Aunt Chapman (everyone calls her "Chap," which I thought meant chaperone until I realized her last name's Chapman) is a momentary pain before exiting, Juliet realizes Deborah isn't what she expected. One of the book's most delightful, subtle strokes is when Juliet reveals Deborah introduced herself as "Debs," even though that scene isn't on the page. There will be other subtle implications throughout, but none of them is so… charming.

The chapter ends with Juliet starting her sketches, well on her way to being smitten with her subject.

The portrait painting itself is Paris's main plot, at least from Juliet's perspective. Chap doesn't want to pay for another sitting, but Juliet can't capture Debs from photographs. So Juliet has to engineer ways to see Juliet, which leads to the two exploring Paris together and falling in love with the city. And each other.

The supporting cast expands a bit, with Debs's brother, Billy, joining her and Chap in Paris. His presence allows Juliet and Deborah to get some time together, though why exactly Billy's got time to fake chaperoning his sister will figure into the plot later. There's also Rennell, a potential suitor for Deborah, who's got nothing going for her if she doesn't marry well. Finally, there's Paulette's boyfriend, who doesn't get a name but has some really funny scenes.

The comic's going to leave Paris behind for the finale, which tracks Juliet and Deborah back to their "normal" settings, all the delight of Paris behind them. Except, of course, they then learn through unfortunate experience, some of what made Paris Paris was them, not the city. It's a great finale, with Gane getting back into the full-page city splash shots by the end. In the Paris sections of the comic (proper, so going back to the original series), Gane does these splash pages of Paris street life. Sometimes Juliet will be in them, on her way to find Deborah; sometimes, it'll just be street life. The movement's the same throughout, full of Gane's little observations about the people and the place. It's lovely. Especially considering it's the fifties or sixties, Deborah and Juliet's romance might not do so well on Long Island or in rural Surrey.

Paris is a gorgeous comic, with Gane doing phenomenal character work on its leads—much of Debs's character development comes through in expressions, for example—and Watson's script is outstanding.

Like I said, in addition to being expert and excellent, Paris is also profoundly lovely.

Hitman: Closing Time (1999-2007)

Hitman vol 07

Hitman: Closing Time opens the only way it can (or should) following the previous collection’s gut-wrenching conclusion, which saw Tommy’s surrogate father, Sean, die protecting him. It starts with a Lobo crossover. And writer Garth Ennis spends the entire issue shitting on Lobo. It’s a done-in-one crossover with art from Doug Mahnke. The art’s perfectly excessive, starting with Tommy and Sean (there’s an editor’s note explaining it takes place in the past) spitting in Lobo’s beer. Lobo’s in Gotham on an interstellar bounty hunt and stops by the bar, initially annoying everyone but then becoming a problem when he starts picking on Sixpack.

Thanks to his mind-reading superpower, Tommy knows how Lobo’s super-healing works and concocts a way to take him on. It becomes a foot chase of destruction through Hitman’s Gotham, complete with gangsters and Section 8 (Sixpack’s super-team). Lots of blood, lots of laughs (almost all of them at Lobo’s expense), and a lot of nice art from Mahnke.

Sure, the resolution gag is definitionally homophobic, but if you squint and look at it from a certain point of view, it’s fine… ish. It’s also just the resolution gag; the comic needs a way to wrap up, given Tommy can’t take on an indestructible space mutant forever. The rest of the jokes are just about Lobo being a stupid character. The crossover politics of DC Comics and Hitman must be a great story.

Then there’s a short story about Sixpack’s drunk-dream adventures with Superman, art by Nelson DeCastro (pencils) and Jimmy Palmiotti (inks). It’s from a Superman 80-Page Giant and is entirely for laughs, with Sixpack arguing about superhero morality with Superman, opting for killing the bad guys. Or trying to kill them, with Big Blue having to curb Sixpack’s enthusiasm. It’s very classy art for a comic where Lex Luthor gets gut-punched for a gag.

The story placement also sets up Sixpack as a significant player in Closing Time. The Lobo crossover kicks off because of Sixpack, has him bring in Section 8, then the Superman “crossover” is entirely his story. The following story–as Closing Time starts collecting Hitman proper—is also Sixpack-focused. Sure, Tommy and Natt are chasing a naked guy through the Cauldron, but the drama is about Section 8 giving up on Sixpack’s dream of a super-team. If only there were something he could do to prove himself.

Luckily, Natt and Tommy aren’t chasing just any naked guy. He’s a lab assistant at the Injun Peak Research Center. Thanks to demonic dealings, some scientist turned him into a tesseract (the infinitely vast container variety, not the Avengers MacGuffin). The first part of the story’s split between Tommy and Natt chasing the naked guy (who can pull pretty much anything he wants right out of his you-know-what), Sixpack and his colleagues arguing about their super-team efficacy, and the bean counter discovering worse and worse details in the scientist’s practices. The science talk has Ennis’s most inventive writing, while Tommy and Natt’s chase gives artists John McCrea and Garry Leach a nice absurd, slightly gross-out comedy action sequence.

The second half of the story has more gross-out comedy action, but also actual gore as interdimensional demons find a toe-hold in our universe. Ennis does horror, comedy, heart, and action with it, finding a rather nice resolution while also revealing it’s a story out of time. While not set in the past like the opening Lobo one, it’s detached from the overall Hitman narrative. Ennis is just doing a Sixpack story in Hitman, not fitting Sixpack into a Tommy story.

The three and a half issue starting bookend and then a two-issue closer will set Closing Time’s main arc (appropriately titled Closing Time) apart from the rest of the collection, which is appropriate. The Closing Time arc, an eight-issue epic closing off the series and its so far surviving cast, is a doozy.

Mainly having resolved all the mob stuff last collection—there’s still a bounty on Tommy and Natt’s heads, but the mob itself isn’t a villain, just its hopeful hitmen—Ennis goes back to the start to find strings to tie up the series. Though he takes his time revealing where all those strings come from. Instead, he sticks to the first one he introduces–the mom who lost her kid to the vampires a while back. She’s in trouble and, if you’re lucky enough to know him, there’s no one better to help you with trouble than Tommy Monaghan. It’s a nice way to open the story, with Ennis then putting in an echoing device. That echoing device is a quick, devastating rumination on the series’s overall tragedy; great stuff. But Closing Time is just a series of great stuffs.

Starting with giving Tommy’s on-again-off-again girlfriend Tiegel a character development subplot for the arc. She doesn’t get in on the action this time, with Ennis bringing back a rogue female CIA agent as Tommy’s love interest and he and Natt’s third. The rogue CIA agent, McAllister, is one of Ennis’s archetypes—the capable female espionage agent–with McAllister being both softer and harder than he’ll go with the template in the future. It’s particularly interesting because she’s a deus ex machina too early in the plot. Most of Closing Time is about her bonding with Tommy and Natt and the supporting cast. She gets to be a regular cast member faster than anyone else in the comic ever has (though I guess Ennis never really tried with anyone else).

The story’s villain will turn out to be an evil CIA guy trying to make government superheroes with alien technology from the Bloodlines. The experiments aren’t going well, though there’s actually a lot less with the flesh-eating human monsters than I was expecting. Ennis contains most of the gore to a subplot with the lead scientist. The villain, Truman, is another returning character. McAllister’s back from the Green Lantern crossover issue, Truman’s back from early on, then there’s the main hitman nemesis, the son of a vanquished baddie. Not to mention the mom in trouble. Or the Dirty Harry-esque cop who’s promised to protect Tommy against any enemy. Lots of return appearances, all tied together thanks to Tommy. No one can escape the Cauldron.

Ennis also does a bunch of flashbacks, setting up Tommy and Natt as teenagers in the Marines and Tommy growing up in the Cauldron, which means some old Sean and Pat appearances. Ennis writes Hitman to be binge-read, not just for the callbacks to earlier in the series. The Closing Time arc is paced for a single reading. It must’ve been very frustrating DC took forever to collect it.

The Closing Time story has a good three-act structure throughout the eight installments, with some big action set pieces throughout and a whole lot of heart. Everyone gets their appropriate farewell in the comic, with Ennis grabbing the heartstrings and yanking as hard as he can. There are some hints the story’s a rushed conclusion, the occasional plot detail Ennis has to push too hard on to make fit, the things he wasn’t done exploring. But they make it work. It’s a lovely finish for the comic.

So it not being the last story in the collection is initially a little odd, especially since the coda is a JLA crossover, originally intended for the JLA Classified anthology series, which got canceled before the Hitman one ran. So instead of a four-parter, it’s a two-parter, set six years after the main series, when everyone’s fate has cemented, and an intrepid reporter has some questions about Superman’s relationship with professional hitman Tommy Monaghan, a known killer, and man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition. The reporter—named Kirby, with Ennis showing his soft side—interviews Superman’s de facto press agent, one Clark Kent.

At some point in the past, the Bloodlines aliens came back, and the JLA needed someone who they’d give powers for scientific reasons. So they go get Tommy and bring him to the moon, where Kyle Rayner Green Lantern’s embarrassed to know him, and Batman takes delight in telling Superman about Tommy’s profession. Ennis balances the alien threat with Superman reconciling being emotionally invested in a “bad guy” and Tommy having a blast in a superhero crossover. Some excellent writing on the characters from Ennis, who might not have wanted to write DC superheroes, but it’s too bad they didn’t convince him to do more of it.

The conclusion works as a rumination for the whole series.

McCrea pencils and inks the JLA crossover, busting ass to give it a unique, distinct feel from the regular series. Especially after Closing Time, it’s kind of hard to imagine Hitman without Leach inking McCrea. But then the crossover isn’t a Hitman comic; it’s a Superman story about Hitman.

And it just makes you want to read the whole comic, all sixty issues plus crossovers, all seven trades, all 1,600 pages, all over again. Ennis, McCrea, and Leach do one hell of a job.

Life on Mars (2006) s02e08

The “Life on Mars” season finale begs think pieces about its failures. Not the direction; S.J. Clarkson does a great job. Not the acting; everyone’s good, though not really great because it’s such a bad story.

To wrap up the mystery of whether series lead John Simm is living in 1973 and experiencing hallucinations he’s a modern-day police officer in a coma imagining he’s in 1973, is in a coma and imagining 1973, or has somehow travelled back in time.

Now, the show doesn’t resolve the couple times Simm’s past actions have had present day repercussions and there’s never any serious suggested of time travel. So either it’s very likely to be the coma thing. And this episode, written by—oh, of course it is—Matthew Graham, is going to walk everyone through these possibilities like we’re watching the second or third episode of a miniseries. Meaning everything after the first episode of the first season… not important. There’s a reason there hasn’t been any character development over the second season; because there’s no season arc. It’s just been some soft two-parters—like this one, which has Ralph Brown return and tell Simm a whole bunch of hard truths about Philip Glenister and company—but they’ve been done-in-ones.

And now, the finale, which quickly drags Simm through a subplot about actually he’s had head trauma and is imagining all the future stuff (meaning the viewer’s existing in the imagined future too because we’ve got shared pop culture references, including a very bad Robocop one this episode, which should’ve been fine but Graham ruined it because of course he did). Now, there are all sorts of sight gags referring to previous episodes, which all imply some or most of the show has been entirely imaginary and a complete waste of time.

Then it turns out that entire subplot is a waste of time.

What’s so impressive about Clarkson’s direction is the way she doesn’t let the obvious narrative inertia of the script slow things down too much. Simm’s got what should be a really difficult part—especially when he keeps trying to pressure Liz White into sleeping with him—but ends up being fairly simple and digestible. Graham’s solution for the series’s puzzles and riddles is to do a couple obvious things, one of them a little more craven than the other, and wrap things up.

Only… it’s not like they’ve been wasting time about Simm investigating the reality of his reality the whole series. He’s only done it the first episode and this episode; everything else in between has been too slight. So there’s no rewatch quality to the episode itself. It’s just trying to justify itself.

It’s a disappointing finish, of course. Still a great cast, still a great production. Still funny. Graham doesn’t write the best jokes, but they get great deliveries.

But it’s just a bigger finale letdown than I remember.

Also.

Recasting Simm’s mom is a major failure.

Not even Clarkson can make that one work. Nor Simm for that matter. He’s got some highs and lows this episode; Graham’s script gives him so very little.

But, you know, it could’ve been worse. There are some really bad moves and some okay enough ones. There’s some nice character interplay, with everyone getting a second off of sorts.

They really just needed a good show bible; they needed some character development; they needed Joanne Froggatt. But even without, “Life on Mars” is a good show, one with a mildly annoying finish to a middling second season. Great performances. Great production values.

Anyway. It’s not good but it’s a very terse fine. Clarkson does a great job. The actors do what they can with what they’ve got.

And you’re not left wanting any more “Life on Mars,” which seems to have been the goal of the second season.

Life on Mars (2006) s02e07

S.J. Clarkson directs this episode so it always looks good and moves well. The script’s from first “Mars”-timer Mark Greig, who turns in a fairly decent “is the guv a killer” episode. Philip Glenister’s been charged with murder and the evidence is against him; with replacement DCI Ralph Brown in to oversee the case, John Simm feels the pressure to put Glenister away.

Only if Glenister did it, there wouldn’t be an episode, so Simm is out to prove his innocence, even as the rest of the team falls away. It’s good though, because when there’s a lengthy chase sequence of Glenister and Simm outwitting Dean Andrews and Marshall Lancaster, the episode’s easily at its best. Having Glenister forced to spend an episode with Simm and rely upon him… there’s a lot of good bicker banter. Plus the investigation scenes make more senes when it’s Glenister and Simm; they’re actually able to talk it out, giving “Mars” its first crime scene investigation since the beginning of the season. Simm and Glenister are excellent actors and this episode gets to showcase their ability more than most have been lately.

The frame-up involves a fight promoter, Seamus O’Neill, who Glenister testifies against in court. Glenister gets blasted afterwards and goes harassing O’Neill, with Simm as a witness, including brandishing a firearm. So apparently Glenister checked out a pistol for court duty. Okay.

After leaving a drunken Glenister to roam the streets of Manchester, Simm goes home and passes out, leading to a dream sequence, in which he gets an ominous call about being asked for help and to provide it. So who’s calling for help when the phone wakes Simm up? Glenister over O’Neill’s dead body, his gun on the scene.

The coppers arrive and take Glenister in and then Simm meets Brown, who’s from the same police station (“Hyde”) where Simm is supposedly from but they don’t know each other. They do have some similar detecting techniques, which Lancaster in particular notices. This first act of the episode is about the only time there’s anything for Liz White to do, because once Simm teams up with Glenister, there’s no time for girls. Not when Simm has also got to keep Brown at bay.

The resolution requires Simm and Glenister to be particularly bad coppers—they did a silly bad job on the initial case with O’Neill, which we all discover together in one of the suspect interviews—but it’s mostly forgivable. There’s a solid ending, right up until we find out this episode answers a question brewing and usually forgotten since the first episode of the season—who’s calling Simm from a Hyde number?

Life on Mars (2006) s02e06

It says a little bit too much about “Life on Mars” series two the writer tasked with resolving the “boyfriend in a coma, it’s really serious” arc presumably going on in future with Archie Panjabi, Simm’s girlfriend in the pilot episode who was kidnapped and apparently rescued; it’s been a season and a half and it’s time for Panjabi to move back.

I wanted to give “Mars” the benefit of the doubt and think Panjabi was just busy with her career but not so much looking at her filmography for those years. If they just waited to do this episode, without having a single Panjabi reappearance between… the show’s got such a distressing overall arc and so many missed narrative opportunities.

Panjabi’s back this episode in the present to dump Simm in his coma and move on with her life. In the past, he’s working a case where a recent Ugandan Asian immigrant ends up dead in his record shop and everyone thinks it’s drug related except Simm. Simm’s got to solve the case without any help from Philip Glenister, who’s too racist to actually work the case and instead wants to let respectable drug kingpin Ian Puleston-Davies kill the competition and keep drugs away from kids. It’s amazing Glenister is able to keep the character as sympathetic as he manages.

The mystery itself is rather compelling, definitely the best one of the season. There’s a stoner dealer, Tim Plester, the missing brother of the victim and Glenister’s number one suspect, Phaldut Sharma, and then Alex Reid as the victim’s girlfriend. Simm and Reid bond because they’re both dating East Asians and experience racism. There are some big, obvious differences, but suffice to say, when Simm is grandstanding to everyone about how he was a thoughtful boyfriend to Panjabi, it’s hard to believe.

There’s a cringe-y scene in the conclusion with Reid and Simm—mostly about Simm’s intent—and the episode’s way too easy on Glenister, completely copping out of dealing with the racism.

Good direction from Andrew Gunn, who scales to the various places the episode wanders; except with the opening Panjabi stuff, which seems like they’re using old footage repurposed and it immediately feels desperate. There are a number of desperate moves in the episode, which end up mostly fine thanks to the acting.

Reid’s never quite singular enough, especially given the desperate moves in her arc, but she’s good. It’s clear early on the show’s not delivering on the character front, rather the mystery.

It’s nice for the episode not to have any glaring problems though. Even if it’s unclear Jenkin’s aware he’s recycling plot points from first season episode, not to mention White doing her obviously unwarranted jealousy gag again.

Okay, so, a couple bumpy points. But overall, it’s the more successful episode in a while.

Life on Mars (2006) s02e05

It’s a Matthew Graham episode, where he definitely goes far in showing I was right to dread Matthew Graham episodes.

After a delightful claymation opening, John Simm wakes to a phone call from the station. They need him there ASAP. He’s been out a day sick, which we’ll later find out is closer to two days. Why’s he been sick? They gave him speed in the future. He gets messages from his doctors who address him directly, except there’s no continuity between the doctors. The O.D. manifests in coma-land like a common cold, though there’s eventually an explanation for it, which also has Simm gaining the superpower of being able to flashback into a character’s story if they touch him.

But only for the stuff he’s missed since being out sick because I’m pretty sure he touches the killer and we don’t get a flashback to the crime.

The superpower goes away when Simm gets better, but it’s interesting to think what they could’ve done with Simm getting level ups in the Matrix and having it matter to the story instead of it just being a way to fill time and dump exposition.

The emergency is civilian Reece Dinsdale threatening to hang himself in the police station unless the cops release Adam Beresford from prison. One year before there was a murder case and the coppers had a fast, guaranteed result with Beresford. Only when Philip Glenister tells it to Simm as part of a narrated flashback exposition dump—not sure why Simm didn’t just touch him for a segue—it’s obvious Glenister banged the kid up and made him plea when he wasn’t guilty.

Only the show doesn’t ask the viewer to acknowledge it until much later in the episode, which doesn’t say a lot for Graham’s trust in his target audience.

There’s some funny flashbacks with Marshall Lancaster having a mustache. Glenister has an okay arc; he’s convinced Beresford’s guilty and resents Simm’s distrust in him. It’s a very simple kind of character development, but it’s something. Like, Glenister’s better than the script and makes it happen.

Liz White gets to do a bunch of the actual investigating—Simm spends a large portion of the episode unconscious but able to watch the goings on with his fellow coppers; so he’s in a coma imagining he’s unconscious in a false reality while then observing that false reality without interacting.

Did the better directors on the series just make it all seem less pedestrian in the gimmick, I wonder. Andrew Gunn does an all right job but it’s not anything special.

Nice use of Roxy Music, which figures into the subplot where Simm uses the information he mind-read from White to ask her on a date. It’s okay because he’s just imagining her.

Anyway. Good support from the suspects and victims this episode. There are more than usual—four or five fairly active ones—and they’re all quite good. “Mars” doesn’t often rely on a set of usual suspects, but it clearly could if it wanted.

Life on Mars (2006) s02e04

So this response is going to be about the importance of show bibles for consistency’s sake, not even continuity. Or at least the first few paragraphs. And I just remembered where I heard of show bibles–“Star Trek.” The phaser rifle was only used in the pilots even though it was in the show bible as available for the rest of the series. Broke Chekov’s gun, didn’t it.

Anyway.

“Life on Mars” doesn’t seem to have a show bible but it also doesn’t have any reliable consistency, which affects the verisimilitude as well as the potential for character development.

Co-creator Ashley Pharoah’s got the writer credit this episode and it initially gave me comfort—one of the three creators must have some idea what’s going on in the show. Turns out… not really.

Like when John Simm meets someone he knows from the future and acts threateningly weird, even though he’s been having this same experience since the first episode of the show and then almost every episode afterwards. It sort of seems like it’s to remain accessible to new viewers but the show’s not actually episodic enough? It’s weird and they should have it figured out halfway through the second season.

Then there’s Liz White’s understanding of Simm’s condition. Condition meaning her new boss and usually unrequited love interest (usually love interest, not occasionally not unrequited) Simm always talking about how he’s in a coma in the future and just imagining all this stuff. White needs to be reminded of it almost every time he brings it up in the second season because she’s forgotten since getting her promotion.

It means White’s character never gets to develop when there always need to be a restart. Every episode has them ostensibly building the White and Simm subplot but they always reset it so it never actually builds up. One step forward, two steps back. And now I’m remembering what the second season was like to watch the first time through.

I wonder if I ranted about show bibles back then too.

This episode’s about young women ending up murdered and dumped. The solution’s going to involve key parties thrown by sleazy but seemingly harmless car salesman Nicholas Palliser and his wife, Eva Pope. White and Simm pose as a married couple while Philip Glenister, Dean Andrews, and Marshall Lancaster bitch about having to work surveillance.

The investigation stuff is a good episode for White and Simm; White especially. Glenister eventually gets some great comic moments. The A plot works. It’s just everything else, except maybe Lancaster getting dating advice from Simm, is way too thin.

Also the one of the only established character traits White does have is being jealous of Simm and a female guest when the show goes out of its way to establish to the viewer there’s nothing going on. It’s like they gave White a promotion this episode so they could demote her character development.

So, it’s a pretty mediocre episode (for the always well-acted, always well-produced show). It’s entertaining enough, with some great jokes but it doesn’t add up to anything.