7. Life On Mars
BBC
Episode: Series Two, Episode Eight (2007) The BBC's time-travelling crime drama Life on Mars made a big splash when it first aired in 2006, receiving both great ratings and reviews. It was a brave decision by the cast and production team then to close the series after just two series, and it was even braver to end it without offering all the answers and chiefly what happened to DI Sam Tyler? The premise of the show is best left to Sam himself:
'My name is Sam Tyler, I had an accident and I woke up in 1973. Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time? Whatever's happened it's like I'm on a different planet. Now maybe if I can work out the reason, I can get home.'
In this final episode, Sam wakes up out of a coma and tries to adjust to normal modern-day life, away from the colourful world of the 70s. In the end, he realises that he belongs there and jumps off a building to get back, along to the soundtrack of the David Bowie song from which the show takes its name. In short, its the most joyous instance of a main character committing suicide on television. So what was it? Did it really all just happen in his head when he was in a coma? Is it a form of the afterlife - but if so Sam went there before he died? The finale doesn't bother with any definitives and is happy to leave us on a cheery note as Sam does return to the 70s and finally gets together with WDC Annie Cartwright. Before a little girl breaks the fourth wall and switches of the camera... This entry would be a lot higher on this list if it were not for the fact that it had a follow-up series, Ashes to Ashes, which ended up explaining it all anyway. In the event, it was a lot better explanation than that given in the American remake of the series - it was all a virtual reality created to entertain an astronaut on his way to Mars. Yes, really.