Life on Mars (2006 – 2007)

I guess something came up in my YouTube feed, featuring David Bowie’s song “Life on Mars?” It is considered one of Bowie’s best songs, and one where his cut-up lyrics paint a picture of a different time.

The resulting TV series on BBC was probably the last one I watched before returning to Canada in 2007. But it has stuck with me, all these years later.

This ending was supposed to be that final image of leaping off the building, but others thought it needed more, so we got this following ending instead. Emotionally, it is much more satisfying.

Now, the reason I’m revisiting the ‘scene of the crime’ is to remark, again, on the idea that there is a parallel time and place we visit when we’re in a NDE or coma. Some people would prefer to go to a heavenly place, but sometimes that doesn’t suit the individual who is looking for more meaning in his or her life. 1973 was a rough time in the past, but the political correctness of today’s modern age didn’t stop the police in Manchester from catching the bad guys and making the world a better place, then.

If Sam Tyler can go back to where he left off when he woke up from his coma by essentially committing suicide, then death has no hold on the rest of us. (I know it’s a fantasy, but that doesn’t undo what the truth might really be.) Now, Sam will be there ‘forever’, as his girlfriend suggested.

What makes the point for me is that, I, too, returned to my past life after living 22 years in the UK. Hmm.