Life on Mars wins an Emmy (Not)

October 14, 7:32 PMNY Entertainment ExaminerMichael Moran

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In this image released by ABC, Jason O'Mara is
shown in the new ABC drama, "Life on Mars,"

(AP Photo/ABC, John Clifford)

It’s time for the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences to open a new Emmy category: Most Lamest Use of Tired Ol’ Dramatic Device in a Series. The category wouldn’t want for nominees — several of the season’s new shows are fine contenders for the prize. Fringe, Knight Rider, Eleventh Hour and The Mentalist all display a healthy appetite for the trite and true. However, Life on Mars is a clear winner in the Most Lamest category. Its creators, who include the much-lauded David E. Kelley, give us a plethora of Most Lamest Devices—serial killers (Dexter et al), bitter cops (a la NYPD Blue), a sexy policewoman (paging Pepper Anderson) —but then they throw in time travel too! Shades of The Time Tunnel, X-Files, Heroes… The result? An show that can’t gain dramatic traction because it is too busy trying to resolve pesky plot issues. Life is not the worst new show of the season—a prize claimed by the new, improved and totally nitwitted Knight Rider—but it’s definitely the Most Lamest.

Here’s a rundown of how Life managed to capture the Most Lamest title so early in the running:

Life’s main character, Det. Sam Tyler (foxy Jason O’Mara) of the NYPD is hit by a car while chasing a serial killer (Most Lamest score +1) who has nabbed Tyler’s girlfriend (Lisa Bonet, blink and you miss her). 17 million people in the tri-state area and the killer picks the detective’s girlfriend, huh, whaddya know (+2). Post-accident Tyler wakes up to find himself in 1973. Naturally he’s still a cop (+1) and works at the same police station (+1). However he is also, conveniently enough, a new transfer and thus an unknown quantity, helping him to blend in (+1). No one really pays him too much mind except for flirtatious policewoman Annie Norris (Gretchen Mol) (+1).

Tyler, understandably bewildered by time travel, really needs a trip to Bellevue, but his co-workers, a group straight out of the Hill Street Blues Academy (+1), are awed by his amazing CSI-style forensic skills (+2). Thus his boss (Harvey Keitel), an old school cop uninterested in the constitutional rights of suspects (+1), lets Tyler lead a murder investigation that ties into—yes, you guessed it—the 2008 serial killer who is holding his girlfriend hostage (+100). Just add some over-obvious music (The Rolling Stones’ Out of Time (+1)) and Life has earned a score of 112 out of a possible 30. Take that, Fringe, Slightly Lamest Update of X-files that you are!

Life asks us to believe an awful lot, but it doesn’t reward our work with any of the great fun that long-form TV can supply. The actors are of uniformly high caliber, but they’re saddled with poor lines and unbelievable action sequences. O’Mara plays the lead with a rugged handsomeness and an American accent that only occasionally slips, but mostly he is asked to act bewildered, which gets a little dull. And while it’s nice to see Michael Imperioli in a shaggy-hot pornstar ’stache, he doesn’t have anything to do but make smart remarks. Keitel is the most ill-served. The clearly aging actor is asked to pummel O’Mara, thirty years his junior, in an unbelievable scene that does nothing but make one worry about Keitel’s physical well-being.

ABC.com's  promotional voice-over assures us that Life on Mars is the most “hotly anticipated” new show of the fall season. After viewing the first episode, I’m glad that my deeply ingrained cynicism prevented me from wasting my precious supplies of hot anticipation. I’d suggest you conserve your supplies too. After all, winter’s coming.