Even though it wasn’t a patch as interesting as the UK version, I was growing to like the US version as it developed its own identity.
Shame that they have decided to cancel it. It seems to me that a lot of great shows low ratings must have a reason for it, one they haven’t managed to trace. Frankly I doubt that it’s bittorrent.
I stopped watching after the episode with his father.
I thought it had potential but that the main character was a poor actor. It was painful to watch him do a scene with either Harvey Keitel or Micheal Imperioli.
That’s too bad. This was the only new series I really enjoyed. At least ABC is going to allow it to finish the season up.
I didn’t really hear about the UK version until the US version started, so I haven’t seen it. I am intrigued to check it out though.
Will they close up the storyline, or just leave the viewers wondering what this is all about?
What a coincidence; we just removed it from our DVR list of things to record last week. Realized that although we watched it (when there was nothing else to see) we just didn’t really like any of the characters and wouldn’t care if they all got blown up in a bank robbery or something.
Might tune in to the last episode to see how they wrap it up, but otherwise, this is one show that I don’t feel bad upon hearing the news it was canceled.
Rats. I was enjoying the show, but knew that it was struggling for the almighty ratings. The problem with a show like this, of course, is that there are a lot of dangling questions that will need to be resolved in short order for those who have stuck with it.
I have to think there’s something to the British system where a new show can pitch “we need 16 episodes. No more. No fewer. If it’s a failure, you’re done at that and we tell a complete story. If it’s a success, we may spin off or do something similar.”
I suspect not, since they’ve only got five more episodes to go. That means they’ve probably already shot them (doesn’t it?) and that in turn means the producers didn’t know the series was ending when they shot them.
-FrL-
From my link:
I watched the first few episodes, but take away the time travel gimmick and what you’ve got is a pretty formulaic cop show with a lot of cliches about the 70s. And after having seen The Wire - well no other cop show stacks up.
Yes, that’s where I got the information about the five episodes. But I don’t see how they can conclude this gives the series a chance to finish its story. It seems quite the opposite to me.
The part you quoted isn’t attributed. It appears, then, to be the reporter drawing his own conclusions. So I’d need to see the reasoning behind that conclusion before I accepted it. My own reasoning (admittedly from a standpoint of far less knowledge of the way things work in Hollywood than this reporter, probably) leads me to think exactly the opposite.
-FrL-
It’s unfortunate, as I liked the show, including that it’s willing to embrace the weirdness (the whole bit with the miniature robots and the television transmissions from the future). It had a really good soundtrack too. Although it would be nice if this show wrapped everything up and resolved the central mystery. I wonder if they’ll do so with the same storyline as the British version of the show (which was really ambiguous).
Not familiar with the UK incarnation, but I was enjoying this (any opportunity for a weekly Kietel fix is welcome) and hope they send it off in a suitable manner.
Conversation I had with another dad at my daughter’s karate class, not one week ago (obviously, we were discussing various shows we enjoyed):
He: Life On Mars, that’s another really good one.
Me: No, never seen it. Heard some good stuff, but never got around to it.
He: Oh, you really should give it a shot…it’s a great show.
Me: Hmmm…yeah, maybe I’ll give it a watch. Oh, wait…it’s on ABC, isn’t it?
He: Yeah, why?
Me: Never mind…if it’s a good as I’ve been hearing, it’ll be canceled by the end of the month.
CRAP! Yet another show I really like is cancelled. And of course it’s a show that was slowly developing a big mystery that will either never be resolved or will have a too-quick wrap up in the final episode.
RIP Life On Mars
and Pushing Daisies,
and Journeyman.
I suppose Fringe will be next. 
I guess the networks need time for more famewhore reality shows with dancing celebrities and douchebag bachelors.
Oh well, it means I will spend less time watching broadcast television and more time viewing via Netflix.
This is one of the reasons I hate watching shows with an underlying mystery built into the premise. I get hooked on trying to deduce the solution to the mystery, watching each episode for clues, nitpicking apparent contradictions or wondering if I’m missing something. And then the damn show gets canceled and I feel like I bought a mystery novel only to find that the publisher forget to include the last chapter.
That may be one advantage of UK shows. Since they have short seasons, they usually don’t try to drag out a mystery for years and years.
FWIW, tvshowsondvd.com announced today that series one of the BBC show will be released on DVD in the USA on July 28, with series two to follow sometime in 2010.
And the BBC sequel, “Ashes to Ashes”, starts its run on BBC America this Saturday.
I wanted to like the show, and mostly I was, but I didn’t like the random weirdness (especially the eye robot bug business). It also felt like they were kind of directionless, and weren’t willing to commit to plot lines. For example, it was kind of weak how they ended the 2008 relationship, rather than have the main character deal with the conflict of developing relationships in 1973 that would essentially be cheating. The thing with the cabin and the crossword puzzles just kind of went away. The thing with the lieutenant’s daughter kind of ended up being a big non-issue.
I would have liked to see them have time to get things straight, but I’m not terribly surprised that ABC pulled the plug.
I had caught one or two episodes of the British series; nice to know that I’ll have a chance to watch it from the beginning now.
Before I set my DVR to start recording “Ashes to Ashes” on Saturday, does anyone know if it’s worth watching if I haven’t seen the original series?
Hmm… I was looking forward to catching up on the US series via DVD at some point, but looks like there’s not a lot of point. The UK series is my favourite TV show of all time (probably), and although there seemed to be a bit of a ‘note-for-note-cover-version’ sense to it, I still wanted to see it.