Life On Mars will return for a final series, its co-creator has revealed.
The BBC drama aired for two seasons between 2006 and 2007 before a three-series spinoff Ashes To Ashes. It tells the story of DI Sam Tyler (John Simm) who had a car accident in the year 2006 and finds himself back in time to ’70s Manchester. He learns that he has a boss in the shape of, Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister), a cantankerous, old school DCI.
Writer Matthew Graham confirmed the news on Wednesday (April 1) in a Twitter webchat to accompany an online watch-along for the show’s first two series.
#LifeOnMarsLive We would never make another Mars unless we really had something to say and could push the envelope all over again.
Finally we have something.— Matthew Graham (@TremensDr) April 1, 2020
“We would never make another Mars unless we really had something to say and could push the envelope all over again. Finally, we have something,” he told fans.
He also seemed to confirm Glenister’s return, writing: “There are bad things and there are monsters. These things are real. But to get to you they have to get through the Guv [Gene Hunt]. And the Guv is putting his driving gloves on.”
The final series, he added, would comprise four or five episodes and be based in Manchester and London – “set partially in the 70s, partially in the 80s and mostly in an alternate now”.
#LifeOnMarsLive As we enter the final phase of the ep I’d like to tell you that in The final Chapter there will be a TV show WITHIN our Tv show.
TYLER: MURDER DIVISION— Matthew Graham (@TremensDr) April 1, 2020
Among the cast he’d like to see return, Graham namechecked DC Annie Cartwright (Liz White) and DCI Derek Litton (Lee Ross). “When you wonder who will be coming back for The Final Chapter – think Avengers Assemble,” he said.
A new series or one-off Life On Mars programme was reportedly turned down by the BBC, according to Graham’s fellow creator Ashley Pharoah. In 2018, he said it had not made “financial sense” for the corporation to make a mooted ’70s-set Christmas special.
Life On Mars is also loved by many fans for it soundtrack. The show’s title is taken from the David Bowie song, which plays on an iPod in Tyler’s car while he is run over, and on an 8-track tape in a Rover P6 when he awakes in 1973. Other snippets of the song are used throughout the third series of the programme’s sequel, Ashes To Ashes.
