The End of Life on Mars in America

Life on Mars American style made its final bow last night, and I have to say I was disappointed, not because the short-lived series ended, but because it never really lived up to its potential.

I hear the British version, with a somewhat different story, is brilliant - and I look forward to seeing that - but the American version of Life of Mars brilliant was not. And that's saying a lot for me, because I'm always willing to give any story with even a whiff of time travel the benefit of the doubt, and usually much more.

Until the last few minutes of last night's finale, the episode did about the only thing the series was good at - providing brief instances of Sam's inexplicable, paradoxical life in 1973/2008-9. Last night had another compelling scene of adult Sam in 1973 watching himself on television in 2008 (taking care of an aged Norris), and a good exchange between adult Sam and his father in 1973, in which Sam's father says he knows that the adult Sam is his son. Gene (Harvey Keitel) and Ray (Michael Imperioli) were ok, but, as in the entire series, these two were acting way below their talent.

The denouement did wrap everything up, with some nice touches, but the "everything was just a dream" resolution, even when Sam is dreaming on a mission to Mars way in the future, is one of the tritest gambits in fiction and science fiction.

I'm glad the series tried to do something different, sorry it didn't do it better, and will look forward to seeing the British version when it's available in Region 1 DVD.

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 #6 Meets Itself on Television ... Life on Mars #7: Is Annie Real? ... Life on Mars Returns with a Glimmer of Sanity

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book


Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!

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Life on Mars Returns with a Glimmer of Sanity

Life on Mars is back in America for the second part of its debut season on ABC. So far, there have been two 2009 episodes.

In the 2nd 2009 episode - that would be 1.9 - we're finally beginning to see a little simplification, a good thing, given the insanity and lack of real explanation of what Sam is doing back in 1973.

Annie says she is moving from doubting Sam to helping him. This is welcome, given that Sam clearly needs all the help he can get.

And we have a dude in 1973 calling Sam - who may know about, be responsible for, whatever about, Sam's situation - and directing an Internal Affairs investigator to turn over information about Sam. This is also all to the good - if not necessarily (yet) for Sam, certainly for us, the viewers.

It seemed before winter set in last year that all that Sam was going through was just some sort of bizarre coma in 2009.

Rumors are flying around now, though, that the show may be changing direction - for the better.

I'm hoping that's true, and that what we saw in Episode 9 is the new beginning...

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 #6 Meets Itself on Television ... Life on Mars #6: Is Annie Real?

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

more about The Plot to Save Socrates...





Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!

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The New Golden Age of Television Roars Back

Have you seen Heather Havrilesky's dyspeptic The year the small screen fell flat in Salon, subtitled "Lackluster pilots, slumping sophomore shows and the devolution of the serial drama. The golden age of TV suddenly looked tarnished in 2008."

Here's the picture she paints ...

2008 not only marked one of the worst years of TV in the last decade, but all of the momentum and promise of the past few years seemed to vanish in a haze of crappy, unoriginal new programming, lackluster sophomore shows, flaccid sitcoms and pointless cable comedies.

Some bloggers agree with this, at least in part. The Flaming Nose, for example, cites Dexter, Mad Men, and True Blood as exceptions to Havrilesky's screed, but calls it nonetheless "well reasoned".

But I don't know what picture, or screen, Havrilesky or the Flaming Nose have been looking at.

The past year - 2008 - brought us one of the best seasons of Lost, a cut-throat knock-down legal thriller in Damages, the best episodes ever shown of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, outstanding seasons indeed of Dexter and Brotherhood on Showtime, and The Wire, In Treatment, John Adams, and, yes, True Blood on HBO and Mad Men on AMC, to name just a few.

And here's what we have in store this and next month of 2009: the debuts of new seasons of 24 (January 10-11) and Lost (January 21) - among the top shows ever to have been on television - as well as Battlestar Galactica (January 16), Big Love (January 18), and Damages (January 7), plus the resumption of Fringe (January 20), Life on Mars (January 28), Heroes (February 2), and The Sarah Connor Chronicles (February 13). And, come to think of it, of The Unit (January 4), The Closer (January 26), and Bones (January 15) - none of which I've yet reviewed here on Infinite Regress (as I have all the others), because I've not yet thoroughly caught up with the earlier parts of the current season, because they're not yet on DVD, and I prefer watching these great shows on my television not computer screen.

And, while we're at it, there's also The L Word, which is coming back for its final season on January 18, and I reviewed the first four episodes of here last week. Another fine show.

So, is the new golden age of television - as I called it in an op-ed in Newsday in July 2006 - "tarnished"? Only if you're wearing some kind of rust-colored glasses...

Gearing Back Up for Lost: Podcast Reviews of Season 4, Episodes 1-13, Right Here

The current television season, already in fine form with The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Fringe (J. J. Abrams' latest), Life on Mars, Dexter, True Blood, Heroes, etc - is gearing up for some returns of classics, with 24 to have a special two-hour episode this Sunday (which I'll of course be reviewing here), ahead of its new season in January, and Lost to unveil its 5th Season in January, too.

As an appetizer for those who are looking forward to Lost, and who may not have heard these the first time around, my podcast reviews of all 13 episodes follow below - you can click on the players and listen right here. In my opinion, Season 4 was in some ways the best season of Lost, especially in the superb Desmond time travel story. These reviews originally were heard on my Levinson News Clips podcast, and were usually recorded just a few minutes to a few hours after each episode.

You can also hear some of them on your cell phone - at 415-223-4122.

And my complete run of 54 Light On Light Through podcasts can be found, appropriately, at Light On Light Through....

Enjoy ... podcast players that you can use to hear the podcasts right on this page follow below ...

reviews of Lost, Season 4, Episodes 1-8


reviews of Lost, Season 4, Episodes 9-13

See also 1. Lost's Back Full Paradoxical Blast 4.1 ... 4.2: Five Flashbacks and Three Rational Explanations ... 4.3: Thirty Minutes and Big Ben ... 4.4: Kate and ... ... 4.5 Desmond 1 and Desmond 2 ... 4.6 The True Nature of Ben ... 4.7 Flash Both Ways ... 4.8 Michael and Alex ... 4.9 Daughters, Rules, and Some Truth about Ben ... 4.10 Almost a Dream Come True ... 4.11 Unlocking Locke ... 4.12 Hurley's Numbers on the Dashboard ... Season 4 Finale: Six More Thoughts, Plus One ...

and

2. More Thoughts On Lost 4.1: Those Who Went with Hurley and Those Who Stayed with Jack and Two More Points about Lost 4.1

and: Lost: Keys to What's Really Going On

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

more about The Plot to Save Socrates...





Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!

Life on Mars #7: Is Annie Real? Or, Is Life on Mars a False Memory?

Where else can someone be shot twice at point blank range in the chest, by his father, and recover so quickly that he dashes out of the hospital a day later? And the father and son are pretty much the same age? Why, on Life on Mars, in New York, of course...

And last night's episode #7 did all of that, and packed the most wallop we've seen so far in this surreal series. Sam from 2008, back in 1973, really gets to know his father, well played by Dean Winters of The Sarah Connor Chronicles. And there's a significant change in 1973 "history" - or maybe just the history that Sam is dreaming in his coma - as Sam's intervention prevents his father from killing ... Annie!

Which, again, raises the tantalizing question of what's really going on. Sam's quick recovery from his father's gunshots says coma - Sam isn't really back in 1973, he's dreaming it. But what about Sam's saving Annie?

Was there really an Annie Norris back in that 1973 precinct? Is Sam's memory, which he finally can see, that his father killed Annie back then, a real memory - or is it what we call today a false memory, not necessarily implanted, but brought on by the trauma of Sam's accident in 2008?

We'll need to see Sam back in 2008, awaking from his coma, to get answers to those questions - and to find out if Sam's "presence" back in 1973 has truly changed anything back then, or in 2008.... For example, what, if Annie is real, is she up to in 2008 (if she's still alive)?

Fortunately, we'll be able to learn more when Life on Mars resumes in 2009...

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 #6 Meets Itself on Television

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

more about The Plot to Save Socrates...





Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!

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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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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

more about The Plot to Save Socrates...





Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!

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Life on Mars #5 Meets the Wire in New York

"When you walk through the garden, you better watch your back ..." Hey, they could almost have played that superb Tom Waits "Way Down in the Hole" theme song from The Wire in last night's episode #5 of Life on Mars, which had two* Wire veterans on hand, Clarke Peters (Lt. Freamon on The Wire) and Chad Coleman ("Cutty" on The Wire). Even Whoopee Goldberg had a cameo. *(And an anonymous commentator just mentioned that Chris Bauer, Frank Sobotka from The Wire, played the priest in this episode of Life on Mars - so that makes three Wire people.)

Freamon and Cutty were among the best characters on The Wire. Both were customarily excellent in Life on Mars - in a show that couldn't have been aired at a better time, about the evolution of race relations in America - but Peters' character Bellow had by far the more significant role.

Bellows is Sam's mentor in 2008. Sam works with Bellows as a much younger detective in 1973. This is a great time-travel set up, with possibilities of seeing how Sam's relationship with the young Bellows shaped and/or changed their relationship in the future - classic time travel. But the ending - which I don't want to give away - never explored this.

There was a nice piece of surprise business with Lt. Hunt in 1973, who is turning out to be a pretty appealing character, after all. He increasingly is pulling back from the edge of being a psycho, out-of-control, violent cop - to reveal a human being with a reliable sense of right and wrong.

And what has been revealed about Sam? He's still firmly in a coma as far as I can see - and yet, and yet, the story is also playing with something more. Or, put otherwise, if Sam is just in a coma in 2008, it's a complex coma indeed.

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 #6 Meets Itself on Television ... Life on Mars #7: Is Annie Real, Or, Is Life on Mars a False Memory

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

more about The Plot to Save Socrates...





Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!

All in the Family on Life on Mars #4: Sam Meets His Mother

Meeting your parent or grandparent when you're traveling in the past is an appealing feature of time travel - I've played with that in my Loose Ends saga and in the sequel to The Plot to Save Socrates - does your mother or grandfather recognize any of your future self, which of course is much older than the version of you that she or he knows, do you do anything in that family reunion that can change the course of the future ... These are the kinds of questions that make time travel so much fun.

Paul Simon's "Mother and Child Reunion" is one of the signature songs of Life of Mars (American style), Episode 4, titled "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadows?" The Stones and Paul Simon, and Sam runs into Jim Croce, too. Meanwhile, Sam's mother Rose Tyler is what later generations would happily say is a MILF (Jennifer Ferrin was fine in the role), and she's involved in some dangerous mob business that Sam needs to navigate her out of .... Nothing extraordinary here, though it was great to see comedian Robert Klein in a cameo as mob boss. Rose apparently doesn't see anything in adult Sam from 2008 that leads her to connect him with little boy Sam in 1973 - the closest she and we come is when she says that little Sam wants to be a cop when he grows up - and adult Sam doesn't seem to do anything that will change her and his life, except to keep her from getting killed. But this of course had to have happened, otherwise the adult Sam would have known at the outset that his mother had been killed. Flirting with the vortex of paradox...

In many ways more interesting is Sam's being drugged and slept with and photographed by one of Klein's molls, during which hallucinogenic state he not only sees this moll but Gretchen Mol's character Annie straddling him. I take this scene as, among other things, more evidence that Sam is actually in a coma from the car crash rather than time traveling.

But, of course, that may be just what the story wants us to believe. Which, again, raises a question: what ultimate difference does it make to the story if Sam is unconscious in 2008 and dreaming he is in 1973, or time traveling? Back in 1973, it makes no difference. But it would in 2008. For example, if Sam gets back to 2008, what would happen if he met someone he knew as a time-traveling adult back in 1973? Like his mother, is she's still alive... That would be a mother and child reunion squared.

I hope we see some more of Sam in 2008, sooner or later, to shed some light from yonder dimensions on this question.

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 #5 Meets the Wire ... Life on Mars #6 Meets Itself on Television ... Life on Mars #7: Is Annie Real, Or, Is Life on Mars a False Memory

---

The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

more about The Plot to Save Socrates...





Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!

Life on Mars Goes on in America 3: What Happens When a Time Traveler Runs Into His Younger Self?

I gotta say my single favorite moment in last night's episode 3 of Life on Mars in the mean streets of New York City was when The Marmalade's "Reflections of My Life" came on at the end. I haven't heard that song, maybe since 1973. "All my sorrows, sad tomorrow..." was just perfect for a man unwillingly, apparently stuck back in 1973 from 2008 ... Yeah, that music was perfect, just like about every clip of music I've heard thus far in the series.

Not perfect at all, though, is the purely cop part of the show. Michael Imperioli's Det. Ray Carling is annoying - that's the fault of the character and the writing, not the fine actor - and though I've warmed up a little to Harvey Keitel's Lieutenant Gene Hunt (he finally displayed a bit of a heart last night), he still has a way to go.

It almost feels if the series is a collaboration between a very cool and a tone-deaf writer, with the cool one writing the time travel parts, and the tone-dead writer the cop parts.

There were very good time travel touches last night - the best being when Sam sees his younger self at the end. A time traveler running into his or her younger self is one of the sweet, infinitely paradoxical moments of any time travel story ... does the older traveler instantly get a memory of that encounter? What happens when that look is exchanged between their eyes? "I'm changing, rearranging..." as The Marmalade sing.

I've played with that a lot in my Loose Ends and Plot to Save Socrates stories ... When you're writing a novel or a story, it's easy to explore and lay out some of those possibilities. But what was Sam, the older Sam, thinking we he saw his younger self, and his younger self saw Sam, last night?

I'm looking to find out...



See also Life on Mars Debuts in America ... Life on Mars 2nd Episode in America: Coma, Time Travel, Mars Rover ... Life on Mars #4: All in the Family ... Life on Mars #5 Meets the Wire ... Life on Mars #6 Meets Itself on Television ... Life on Mars #7: Is Annie Real, Or, Is Life on Mars a False Memory

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

more about The Plot to Save Socrates...





Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!

And, hey, like a short, savvy, funny book about time travel? Try Frank Borzellieri's The Physics of Dark Shadows...

Life on Mars 2nd Episode in America: Coma, Time Travel, Mars Rover

The second episode last night of Life of Mars - American style - provided a few more clues as to what is really going.

Sam puts up a list of explanations about how he got from 2008 to 1973. Coma is at top of the list, ahead of time travel. The others - drugs, another planet, multidimensional travel (whatever that is) - I think we can safely rule out.

Why is coma at the top of the list? Because that's by far the most likely explanation. Time travel has going against it the fact that it's intriguingly, deliciously impossible.

But that's in our reality. So the question about Life on Mars can really be put as: is it a show about reality (as are most of the shows on television - cop shows, hospital shows, etc), or is it ... science fiction? Time travel, of course, is not only possible in science fiction, but is one of its staples.

On the actual evidence so far, coma looks the more likely explanation. Sam saw flashes in the first episodes - which could have been doctors shining light into his unconscious 2008 eyes. And last night he repeatedly saw a little futuristic gadget which didn't belong in 1973 - a Mars rover, which landed on the Red Planet in ... 1997. (The Soviets sent two rovers to Mars in 1971, but they didn't look like Sam's 1997 model.) Seeing things that don't belong in the past means that (a) you're dreaming from the future, not time traveling, or (b) objects in addition to what you may have carried with you are traveling to the past. (I'm doubting that somehow Sam is really on Mars...)

But come to think of it, even Sam's clothes were 1973 when he first arrived there. Another argument for coma.

But, I don't know, coma seems to easy and obvious an explanation.

At this point - and I haven't seen the BBC series, so this is truly just based on the first two American episodes - I'm thinking it's somehow coma as well as something else, maybe time travel... Hey, is that "multi-dimensional travel"?

See also Life on Mars Debuts in America ... 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 #6 Meets Itself on Television ... Life on Mars #7: Is Annie Real, Or, Is Life on Mars a False Memory

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

more about The Plot to Save Socrates...





Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!

Complete Premier Episode of Life on Mars in America - Here on Infinite Regress

In case you missed it, or want to see it again, ABC TV was good enough to provide Infinite Regress with this complete first episode of Life on Mars - in New York City... Enjoy...


And here's my review ... Life on Mars Debuts in America

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

more about The Plot to Save Socrates...





Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!

Life On Mars Debuts in America

Fine start of Life on Mars on ABC tonight, and you know that I'm going to review this American version of the British series here on Infinite Regress, since I watch everything I can get my hands on regarding time travel, including Journeyman, relevant episodes of Lost and Heroes, and Deja Vu, too.

Here's the story: Det. Sam Tyler is after a kidnapping killer in 2008, who apparently has just grabbed his girlfiend and colleague crime fighter Maya. He steps out of his car with David Bowie's "Life of Mars" playing on his iPod- and gets hit straight on by a car. He wakes up with David Bowie still singing the same song, but now off cassette tape- because Sam is back, in the exact same place, in 1973. David Bowie has thus given this series a perfect acoustic segue along with a memorable name.

As is the case with Journeyman and Quantum Leap (3 series, featuring 2 Sams and a Dan), neither Tyler nor we can be sure at first if he is really in the past, or just dreaming in a coma. In Journeyman and Quantum Leap, that question is resolved by the end of the first episode - the time traveler is really time traveling. Further, we even pretty quickly learn why: to correct some bad event in the past. What we never learn in those two series is who is calling shots - who or what is making the time traveler travel?

Life on Mars provides even fewer resolutions in this first episode. There is a hint that maybe Sam's purpose in the past is to learn and/or do something that can help save Maya in 2008. Possibly, Sam has already done a little in that direction, by talking to the kidnapper as a boy in 1973 at the end of this episode.

But unlike Journeyman and Quantum Leap, Life on Mars will be one continuing, over-arching story, with Sam from 2008 back in 1973. I'm glad to see this, since I thought both Journeyman and Quantum Leap gave too much attention to specific episode story lines, and not enough to the backbone of the plot (Journeyman improved greatly in this respect near the end).

Most of the 1973 touches are authentic and excellent. The music is outstanding - in addition to Bowie, it was great hear the Stones "Out of Time". So was a bit with Cannon - the great Quinn Martin detective - on television in 1973. And the misunderstanding of Sam's saying "cell phone" as his wanting to "sell" something was nice.

The NYPD detectives in 1973, though, are a little bogus in their roughing up of suspects and disregard of their Miranda rights. Miranda v. Arizona was decided by the Supreme Court in 1966. I know, it's tough to get every little historical detail right, but Mad Men has set a pretty high standard, and the culture of 1973 cops is pretty central to this new series.

But Life on Mars gets credit for having the courage to use the Twin Towers as a 1973 backdrop. And the shout-out to Fordham University - Sam's likely romantic interest in 1973, Annie, got a degree at Fordham in psychology - certainly makes me and my students happy.

Looking forward to more time in the past- next week.

See also 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 #6 Meets Itself on Television ... Life on Mars #7: Is Annie Real, Or, Is Life on Mars a False Memory

=== But I just came back - don't say I never give you anything - to post this great video of the Stones' "Out of Time" ... whew, "You're obsolete, my baby, my poor old-fashioned baby..." the original, ragged, Rolling Stone 1966 album performance...



And here, courtesy of ABC TV, is entire premier episode of Life on Mars, for your viewing pleasure...

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

more about The Plot to Save Socrates...





Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!