Life On Mars

03 February, 2007 by The_Boss

DCI Gene Hunt and DI Sam Tyler (Philip Glenister and John Simm)try to solve a murder, Seventies-style

John Simm is back as DI Sam Tyler – the time-travelling detective who, following a car accident in 2006, woke up to find himself in the year 1973 – as Life On Mars returns to BBC One for its much anticipated second, and final, series.

Despite eerie visions that suggest a tantalising proximity to 2007, Sam once again awakes to find himself very much amongst the pale brown hues of the technologically prehistoric, politically incorrect world of 1973 Manchester – alongside his equally antiquated colleagues DCI Gene Hunt, DC Ray Carling, DC Chris Skelton and WPC Annie Cartwright. And, what's more, he has a murder to solve.

Sam encounters the young incarnation of Tony Crane, a murderous villain he put away in 2006, and soon realises that he is faced with the chance every copper dreams about – stopping the killer before he kills.

Gambling everything on ensuring Crane is sent down, Sam's flagrant disregard for procedure stuns his colleagues in CID. But they can't appreciate what Sam is starting to fear – that, since his car accident, Crane has been released and has found his way to Sam's hospital bedside where he is exacting his revenge on Sam's vulnerable body.

Still desperate to discover how he got to 1973, why he remains there and how he may return to the present day, Sam has to race against the clock to capture a killer who is trying to murder him in the future.

Sam Tyler is played by John Simm, Gene Hunt by Philip Glenister, Ray Carling by Dean Andrews, Chris Skelton by Marshall Lancaster, Annie Cartwright by Liz White and Tony Crane by Marc Warren.