Life on Mars: Difference between revisions

[[Trope Namer]] for the [[Gene Hunt Interrogation Technique]].

 

 

* [[Adventures in Coma Land]]: Whenever 2007 Sam's health declines, reality goes haywire.

* [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]]: {{spoiler|The very last thing that happens in the series is that the Test Card Girl walks up to the camera, looks straight into it and reaches up as if pressing a button just to the side of the camera — making the screen go black like she "switches off" the viewer's TV set.}}

* [[Broken Pedestal]]: {{spoiler|Vic Tyler}} for Sam, and {{spoiler|Harry Woolf}} for Gene.

* [[Call Back]]: In 1973, Annie prevents Sam from leaping off the police station roof. {{spoiler|In 2007, he takes the plunge}}.

* [[Cartwright Curse]]: Both reversed and subverted, interestingly enough.

* [[He Knows Too Much]]: {{spoiler|Harry Woolf bumps off Dickie Fingers for this reason}}.

* [[He Who Fights Monsters]]: {{spoiler|Superintendent Harry Woolf}}.

* [[Holy Backlight]]: As Sam walks towards the police building during the first episode.

* [[Hot Scoop]]: Jackie Queen, the journalist Gene Hunt has a history (and a ''boatload'' of UST) with. She turns up in [[Ashes to Ashes]] as well.

* [[Noble Bigot With a Badge]]: Practically half the cast.

* [[Noodle Incident]]: Whatever it is Mrs Luckhurst ''does'' that's "illegal in some parts of Wales" and makes Gene Hunt scream bloody murder.

* [[Off On a Technicality]]: Sam's supposition that his 2007 case against Tony Crane fell apart while he was in a coma.

* [[Old Fashioned Copper]]: Gene Hunt, Ray Carling

* [[The Seventies]]: Manifested as seventies clothing, hair, and unfortunate blue eyeshadow.

* [[Shameful Strip]]: Happens to Sam after he's slipped a mickey by a prostitute in a frame-up. He wakes up tied to a bed with Gene kicking down the door accompanied by WPC Anne Cartwright. Considering Annie's embarrassment and Gene's quip of "it's not all golf and badminton in Hyde, eh?", it's fairly safe to say Sam was naked.

* [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]]: {{spoiler|Episode 7. Sam finds out the exact circumstances that lead to Kemble's accidental death due to the department's actions, but when he turns in the tape proving it to the superintendent, the superintendent immediately destroys the tape, saying that it could easily be a hoax.}}

* [[Sickbed Slaying]]: Tony Crane torturing the comatose 2007!Sam.

* [[Taking the Heat]]: A union leader tried to cover up a fatal industrial accident at his mill to keep it from being shut down (and his members losing their jobs) by confessing to having murdered the accident victim.

* [[The Television Talks Back]]: Sam's hotline to the 'real' world.

* [[They Fight Crime]]: For the most part, the plots are standard police investigations, though occasionally made significant by Sam's techniques or history.

* [[Time Travel for Fun And Profit]]: Sam, when playing a sweepstake involving horse racing, offers to swap with someone who got Red Rum. Gene suspects he has inside information.

* [[Vigilante Man]]: Toolbox & Big Bird.

* [[Vitriolic Best Buds]]: Sam and Gene.

* [[Wham Episode]]: The finale of the first series turns a lot of things on its head -- {{spoiler|Sam discovers that his father's a crime lord, and he lets him run away, thereby killing what he thought was his only chance at getting back to the present. Sam also ''changes the past'' for the first time in the series.}}

* [[Wham Line]]:

** In episode 2-07:

{{quote| '''Gene:''' Sam. I, uh... {{spoiler|I appear to have killed a man}}.}}

* [[Whoopi Epiphany Speech]]: "If you can feel, you're alive."

** {{spoiler|Which leads to a very dark [[Inversion]] in the ending: when he gets back in 2007, he accidentally cuts himself during a meeting and realizes that he didn't feel it, leading to his decision to leave his 2007 life and go back to 1973.}}

* [[Witness Protection]]: A central plot point of one episode.

* [[Wire Dilemma]]: In series 2 episode 3.

* [[You Can't Fight Fate]]

* [[You Can't Go Home Again]]