Life on Mars Should He Stay Or Should He Go?

[AB]

Would you like to see Sam stay in 1973 or should he go back to 2008/2009?

[robyrob]

this should be a POLL!

he should stay - I know what happened in the UK series, and that would work as well for me (not a spoiler)

[TeeVeeCloset]

Not knowing the outcome of the british version, the ending was a real surprise to me, but unless I didn't undertand it, I am assuming that bascially everything in 1973 didn't happen, basically a suspended stage of animation dream and he should have been in 2008 but something went wrong and he "dreamed of 1973", but what was with the whole "guest starring Lisa Bonet" credit in the last episode and if he wasn't in 2008 either then why did he even care about getting back to Lisa Bonet...& how did he get to know the old age Annie if she was really with him in 2035 as an astronaunt and finally Harvey Keitel was really his father?????.......someone explain!

[robyrob]

Originally Posted by TeeVeeCloset

Not knowing the outcome of the british version, the ending was a real surprise to me, but unless I didn't undertand
it, I am assuming that bascially everything in 1973 didn't happen, basically a suspended stage of animation dream
and he should have been in 2008 but something went wrong and he "dreamed of 1973", but what was with the whole
"guest starring Lisa Bonet" credit in the last episode and if he wasn't in 2008 either then why did he even care about
getting back to Lisa Bonet...& how did he get to know the old age Annie if she was really with him in 2035 as an
astronaunt and finally Harvey Keitel was really his father?????.......someone explain!

well from the Wikipedia explanation of the ending: (highlight to view)

At the end of the series it is revealed that Tyler's 2008 and 1973 realities were both fictitious, created by the 

futuristic computer - named Windy - aboard a space ship called "Hyde" that is carrying Tyler, Hunt, Norris, Carling and 

Skelton on the first ever manned mission to the planet Mars. Tyler's actual reality is the year 2035, and the crew he 

worked with in the past are just virtual reality versions of his fellow spaceship crew members. The reason why he had 

traveled back to 1973 was due to a temporary malfunction on board the ship: to sustain their lives, the minds of all 

of the crew were routinely kept active while asleep using virtual reality "neural stimulation" programs of their own 

choosing, but a meteor storm caused a momentary glitch in the program (Sam had chosen his 2008 identity as 

part of his VR program, but the program accidentally kicked him back to 1973). Frank Morgan is the Mission 

Control flight director, Annie Norris is the Colonel in charge of the mission (a wink to her comment in the finale about 

the sexism of her colleagues that she "just thinks of a time far, far in the future when they all work for me"), and 

Gene Hunt is revealed to be "Major Tom" Tyler, Sam's father. Unlike the show's BBC counterpart, the series ends 

on an entirely happy note, with Sam Tyler in good spirits and happy to be back in his reality.

it was an OK ending but I preferred the UK version's ending - if not only because it left it more open-ended, which of course led to the continuation series. in that version

 Sam gets shot in 1973 and actually goes back to 2008, but decides he wants to go back to 1973 so he jumps 

off a building to commit suicide and ends up right back in 1973 and lives out the rest of his life there. in that version 

he actually had to choose which time was real

[TeeVeeCloset]

Thanks, so it looks like I did pretty much understand it, but the last 5 minutes seemed to go by so quickly and I wasn't recording it to go back and recheck my thinking....thanks again!