"Paul Levinson's It's Real Life is a page-turning exploration into that multiverse known as rock and roll. But it is much more than a marvelous adventure narrated by a master storyteller...it is also an exquisite meditation on the very nature of alternate history." -- Jack Dann, The Fiction Writer's Guide to Alternate History

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Life on Mars #6 Meets Itself on Television in New York

Ok, I've gotten it out of my system - Life on Mars, at least in America, is not time travel. It has nothing to do with Journeyman or Quantum Leap or The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

It is, however, one very interesting series of post-modern, meta-fiction - hey, I don't get academic on you all too often - and Episode 6 brought that out in high mirrors-on-mirrors style. This one really is infinite regress...

Sam in 1973 hears enough through his coma in 2008 to know that he's in danger of being taken off life support unless he gives the future some kind of little sign of life. He's gets sucked into another 1973 caper, in which he's knocked out, reminded about the value of life, and smiles through time, to the future, so the people around him there know there's still something ticking within - at least, that's what Sam and we see on television in the soap opera in 1973 featuring a man in a coma in a hospital room...

But Sam in 1973 also soon sees Maya saying goodbye to him and the guy in the coma on the soap opera. This frees him to get together with Annie - I hope/think - and in the last scene he sees Annie in a bar, she looks at him, and the final credits roll...

Actually, not quite final - for Episode 6 of Life on Mars (in America) circa 2008 - for the credits we first see are on an old fashioned screen. Those credits are for the soap opera Sam has been seeing - "Life on Mars".

If this makes your head spin, that's all to the good.

One question that sill occurs to me about the coma and no time travel - is Sam definitely in the coma in 2008, dreaming of 1973 - or could it be he's in a coma in 1973, dreaming about 2008?

The thing about comas is that they can cut both ways.

On the other hand, how would Sam in 1973 have any knowledge of 2008, unless he first was in 2008?

Ok, I think I got it now...

See also Life on Mars Debuts in America ... Life on Mars 2nd Episode in America: Coma, Time Travel, Mars Rover ... Life on Mars Goes On in America: What Happens When a Time Traveler Runs Into His Earlier Self? ... Life on Mars #4: All in the Family ... Life on Mars #5 Meets the Wire ... Life on Mars #7: Is Annie Real?






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