10 Greatest Time Travel TV Shows Of All Time

First of all, it's probably important to clarify straight out of the gate that this about the UK series, not any of the cornucopia of remakes from all around the world that immediately succeeded this show -- they're all fine, but you just can't beat the original with John Simm.

This story revolves around a Manchester police officer who gets hit by a car and wakes up doing exactly the same job in 1973. What's interesting here (and by interesting, we mean horribly depressing) is how the show maintains a stubbornly consistent level of ambiguity about the specifics of his situation. That is to say, he very well could have traveled back in time, but it's just as likely that he is dead or in a coma or simply mentally ill. (There is a resolution to all of this, and a fairly satisfying one that that, but there's no fun in ruining it if you haven't already seen it.)

Life on Mars succeeds on the weight of John Simm's lead performance, and the fascinating focus on how greatly society has changed just within the past forty years. It did well enough amongst both audiences and critics to spur on an almost equally high-quality spinoff series, Ashes to Ashes, and has earned a lofty position in the pop culture landscape.