Gene 2: The Sequel or Hunting for Miles?

As you have probably guessed or perhaps even seen elsewhere, Gene Hunt has finally been cast for David E Kelley's US Remake. I have known this for a while and if you read the previous post, you will understand why this one has taken a little longer than expected to appear. Pesky viruses and spyware, I'm not going to go on and on about it here. I already did that in the last post. Any way, Gene.

Philip Glenister gave us the phrase in his role of DCI Hunt, "Trust the Gene-Genie!". His new US counterpart may have something similar up his sleeve, "Trust the Gene-Meanie!". Now I'm being stupid, but hey it could happen as the role has gone to none other than Colm Meaney. That's right Colm Meaney, and I think the producers have made a fine choice here as well. Why? Well Colm which many of you know as Cheif Miles O'Brien from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, has already done a stint as Gene before.

In 2004, Colm starred as Gene in the movie Layer Cake along with Daniel Craig of James Bond fame. To the many Doctor Who fans who frequent this site as well, Colm has a connection to time travel but not just from Star Trek. Layer Cake also stars Burn Gorman, who plays Owen Harper in Torchwood. Degrees of separation, oh well I guess we can blame Kevin Bacon for that one. You know what I mean, I hope.

At this point I would like to congratulate Colm, on securing one of the industries most sought after roles. I am sure he will do a great take on Gene, but as to Colm filling Phil's shoes. All I can say is there is only one Gene-Genie, now prepare for the Gene Meanie. Some other casting information has been discovered as well from checking the Showfax website. It appears that either Chris and Ray's parts have either been renamed or cut and replaced by a Det. John Smollers and Det. George Randall. So there is no US Div, but is Marshall Lancaster crying over it? I sincerely doubt this.

One more thing to note is that the US pilot, seems to be a complete remake of the original story as the criminal in it also goes by the name of Colin Raimes and Sam's girlfriend is still Maya. Hmm, I wonder if the young Colin Raimes will have a head like a weather balloon, like his UK counterpart. That's mean isn't it? Well I guess I'm just a Meaney, now Gene is too. 'Til next time Martians peace, I Meaney it!



Cyberman

Season Two Poll Results

Well its finally over everybody, the poll that is. For a while there I thought it was my computer as well, thanks to the wonderfully nice person who wrote trojan "Vundo" or Virtual.Mundo as it is also known. That my Martian friends has been the reason inhibiting myself from posting this sooner. If you ever contract, this garbage on your own machine be sure to download or update Windows Defender, it seems to work where even Norton won't. Well at least in the case of this, any way.

The poll ended up going for a lot longer than originally anticipated, and for that reason we finished with a much larger voter turn out than previous polls. The grand total of votes for this one, was 97. The writers of Episodes 2 and 3, should sincerely thank me for giving the poll more time, as if I didn't those episodes would have recieved no votes at all. The winner of the poll was episode 8, Sam's return to 2007. This episode led the poll all the way from the begining, so I guess everyone liked seeing Sam have conclusion to his predicament. Perhaps Mr Kelley should take note, and keep the US Remake short and sweet and leave viewers wanting more.

The final breakdown of votes can be seen below. I would like to thank those of you who took the time to vote, it has been most appreciated. The new poll has now been launched and can be seen in the links tab, like all others please vioce your opinion. 'Til next time Martians, peace and I wish it were 1973 so I wouldn't habve to worry about viruses and trojans. Cheers,





Cyberman

Series Two Refresher and Stuff

Greetings Martians once again. Today I bring you news that the Series 2 poll is finally finishing. With Life On Mars currently receiving the old REPEAT treatment in the UK, I thought it a great opportunity for you all to voice your views on your favourite Series 2 episode. The poll has been running here for quite a while, and it is time to bring it to a close. Although this particular poll has been one of the most successful so far, I am still seeking further votes before closing it. At this stage the leader in the poll is Episode 8, with 35% of the vote. Its closely followed by Episode 5, "The Camberwick Green" episode with 25% of vote.

At the time of writing this post, we have had a Mammoth 65 votes. Doesn't sound that impressive when you write it, but compared to previous ones its a great turn out. Even so I will continue it up until the 17th of August, which is this Friday so if you haven't put in your 2p / 2c / 2e or whatever your currency is, now is your chance. If you are finding that it is hard to remember all of the great episodes from Series 2, there is a link below the poll to our episode breakdowns. To make it easier for you though I am going to summarise the episodes for you here and now.

SERIES TWO

Episode One: Even though Sam continues to have dreams of his old life, he still remains grounded in 1973. This episode sees Sam coming face-to-face with a criminal he put away in 2006, at an earlier stage in his life. The criminal is a corrupt casino owner, by the name of Tony Crane. In the future Crane is responsible for a series of murders, Sam sees this as an opportunity to stop him before he can commit the crimes. At the end of the episode we see Sam puzzled by a phone call from Hyde. Sam dials the operator and gets the phone number for the last call to his phone, this ends up being HYDE 2612. Sam now has an advantage in his situation, he can call them as well but will it do him any good?

Episode Two: This episode sees Sam and Gene, running into their mentors respectively. Genes' boss Harry Wolf and Sam's' boss from 2006 Glen Fletcher. Both of these 2 characters become inter-woven into the story in different ways. Glen Fletcher becomes an assistant to the team, in the investigation of a spate of robberies. Genes old boss Harry Wolf becomes the prime suspect after a tip-off from one of the local crims, who at present is blamed for the robberies.

Episode Three: Bombs are going off around Manchester. Gene suspects the IRA, Sam is not convinced as the bombs used are not their weapon of choice. Because of Sams theories about the situation, he dares Ray to investigate a suspect car which all goes terribly wrong for Ray. This further compounds Rays' feelings about Sam.

Episode Four: The episode starts with the body of a cosmetics sales lady being found in a local tip. When the body is taken to forensics it is discovered that the corpse is clasping a red geranium. This is a call sign from a killer, who has since died. Sam suspects a copycat killer and is subsequently lured into the world of "Swinger Parties", with the aide of Annie. Gene gate-crashes the under-cover investigation in the guise of Gordon Brown.

Episode Five: Sam feels stranger than usual, and at the start of this episode imagines himself and Gene to be puppets from the famous 70's children's program "Camberwick Green". Sam's hallucinations, we find are the result of an overdose in his hospital bed in present day. Sam must over come these visions to help a desperate man, who has attempted suicide in A-Division.

Episode Six: The team investigate a crime involving heroin in the Ugandan-Asian community. Gene is hell bent on putting someone away as soon as possible. Sam wants to ensure that teams investigates this properly, as he has a close attachment to the situation in having gone out with a Ugandan-Asian woman, his girlfriend Maya. Sam has further contact with Maya through his dreams, only to find out that she has left him in 2006-7.

Episode Seven: This episode sees the team investigating Gene, as all the evidence points to Gene having committed a murder. Sam's boss from Hyde DCI Morgan is brought in to oversee the investigation. As the investigation progresses Gene is looking more and more guilty and another murder occurs, but Sam is determined to prove his Guv's innocence.

Episode Eight: In this the final installment of our beloved series, we see many loose ends tied up. Sam discovers his apparent true identity from Morgan (who is still hanging around from the previous episode), and is instructed by Morgan to create a case against Gene. The story revolves around the death of a miner, who it is suspected has been killed by notorious cop-killer Leslie John. The action does not stop in this final episode, and we see Sam return to present day. Is this really what Sam wants though?

Okay Martians now there is no reason not to vote in the poll. I would also like to thank all of the people who either commented on my last post or emailed me about it. The response was amazing, its great to see the site has so much support. I would also like to offer my condolences to the lovely Dawn from Fab Cards, who I have previously promoted here. It appears she too has fallen victim to this merchants copying ways. The best thing to do with this other merchant is to simply boycott his store, I certainly am.

Finally I would like to add, that over at John Simm PR (one of the other sites I contribute to) we will be doing rundowns of the entire series in the near future. If you would like to catch up on all the latest John related news JSPR, is always a good start. 'Til next time Martians peace, and only 3 days to go until the US version of LOM begins. Yay or Nay?



Cyberman

Can You Believe the Cheek of It Guv?

Greetings Martians, in the past I have endeavoured to bring you news about Life On Mars merchandise. From the legitimate "official", to hand made as well as counterfeit. I have done this for the reason that there is very little "official" merchandise available. On top of all this I commenced making desktops for fans of the site, I put out 3 different ones to date those being of Sam Tyler, Gene Hunt and Annie Cartwright.

If you would like a copy of each these, they can be located in the Downloads section of the site. You may also be aware that the Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt desktops I did 2 different versions. The originals were out of perspective, so I corrected them and replaced them on the site here.

I guess you are all wondering where all of this is going aren't you? Well one of you out there, knows exactly what I am talking about already. I'm still speaking cryptically aren't I? Ok I'll get to the point somebody has decided to take those desktops of Sam and Gene, remove the Life On Mars.tv logo and sell them as posters. Yes they have, you can check it out for yourselves if you like. Whats funny though is the fact that who ever did this, did so with the originals of the pictures (which were out of perspective). Pure Genius! You can find this dodgy merchandise over at ebay.co.uk. A direct link is here, and if you don't mind telling the merchant that these are not his / her "own" designs it would be most appreciated.

Also who ever you are, you forgot Annie. I doubt if Liz White will be offended though. 'Til next time Martians peace, and in future all images will be watermarked, grrrrrrrrrrr.

Presenting Annie Cartwright 2 & Sam Tyler 2

Rachelle LeFevre & Jason O'Mara - The new Annie Cartwright & Sam Tyler. (from David E Kelley's US Remake of Life On Mars)

Greetings once again Martians, today as you can see I'm here to bring you more news about the US Remake of Life On Mars. The series which recently cast Jason O'Mara as the character made famous by John Simm, Sam Tyler. Is about to go into production shortly. Jason O'Mara.net reports filming for the pilot, will commence in LA on the 14th of August and go through until September 7th.

If you are curious to see Jason in action before his introduction as Sam Tyler, head on over to Sony's official site for the latest installment of the Resident Evil series of films, Resident Evil: Extinction. Jason stars as Albert Wesker in the soon to be released movie along with Milla Jovovich, returning once again as Alice. The movie site also has an online game. Strange to be reporting about video games here but not the first time, and probably not the last. Imagine a Life On Mars video game where you could pretend to be Gene Hunt, you could get kids to mind the Cortina and threaten them with stomping on their toys if they didn't.

I can just picture it now, the characters could be done in the style of the Camberwick Green sequence and you could work your way through each episode as a stage in the game. The ultimate goal of the game of course being to get back to present day, may be even at a later stage we would see an Ashes To Ashes add-on pack. You could play just as Sam or Gene, or 2 player with the choice of the second character. If you lost strength in the game you could regain it by going to the Railway Arms. You could get hints from Nelson. Wouldn't that be great? Come on BBC the sales potential is there.

Oh sorry back in reality now, I was telling you about Jason. If you still aren't satisfied with your quest for knowledge on Jason, IMDB is always a good start. The news about the filming start date is great news, it also means we should be receiving casting confirmations shortly for Gene, Ray and Chris. After all it starts in 2 weeks time.

Well that's it for today really, but before I go I would like to alert you to a new site feature, the Ashes To Ashes.tv news widget. What this widget does is give the news headlines from AshesToAshes.tv and allows instant access to the posts. Now the sister site is embedded in the links bar. I have done the reverse over at Ashes To Ashes.tv. 'Til next time Martians peace, and don't worry Rachelle Sam's shy.



Cyberman