No life on Mars

There wasn’t much on the TV and I was channel flipping when I happened upon the American version of “Life on Mars.” I don’t know if it has screened in the UK yet but I could understand if nobody considered it worth the price. Predictably, they’ve pasteurized all the magic out of the show.

The problem of how to Americanize the soccer violence episode was solved by the transposition of a queer-bashing theme sprinkled with a few American sports references: “How ‘bout those Knicks?”

The iconic Gene Hunt is played by the legendary Harvey Keitel. I’m a huge Keitel fan but he’s way too decrepit to convince anybody he’s a working cop.

The glamorous American stars look as if they’re attempting to resemble the original UK cast tweaked to look slightly glossier. Irishman Jason O’Mara might be a more convincing fish out of water if he’d stop trying to play Sam Tiler as an American John Simm. Gretchen Mol looks uncannily familiar as Annie, but blonde. Michael Imperioli looks as if DC Ray Carling is channeling Serpico. And Jonathan Murphy might as well be Marshall Lancaster playing Chris Skelton.

They even retained the practice of interrogating suspects in the store room but, oddly, this seems less believable in an American police station. I mean “Popeye” Doyle never had to go to so much trouble in The French Connection.

The resulting nostalgia fest doesn’t hold up well against existing American police procedural flashback shows such as “Cold Case Files.” I just hope the makers of the original Life on Mars made enough money out of the deal to finance something new.