10 TV Finales That Messed With Your Brain

For the purposes of this article, it’s important to note that there are two similar but distinctly different versions of Life On Mars: the original UK version, starring John Simm and Philip Glenister, and the US remake, starring Jason O’Mara and the legendary Harvey Keitel.

Both versions feature modern day police detective Sam Tyler, who is hit by a car and wakes up in 1973 to find himself with a life, an identity and a career with the police of that time period. Both versions see Tyler struggle to come to terms with his situation while contrasting his more modern, enlightened methods of detective work with those of Gene Hunt, his immediate superior, a crass, corrupt old school copper.

The original Life On Mars left that ambiguity in place at the finale, and only actually resolved the mystery in the sequel series, Ashes To Ashes, which saw a new police detective wake up in 1981 with the same supporting cast and the same dilemma. The creators of the US Life On Mars, however, were clearly keen to put a little distance between themselves and their source material, opting for a completely different resolution of the mystery.

Is he mad, in a coma or back in time? Well, no. He’s an astronaut, in hibernation on the first manned mission to Mars, with a computer system that, Matrix style, recreates VR dreams for its sleeping passengers. In one of the most anticlimactic endings to a show in recent memory, it was revealed that it had been a glitch in the program that had led to Tyler’s moonage daydream of a life in 1973.