What?

[tree_and_leaf]

So... Colm Meaney as Gene Hunt in US- Life on Mars?

Chief O'Brian?

I mean, I love Miles O'Brian, but... I have difficulty imagining the chap who plays him saying things like 'You're surrounded by armed bastards!' or referring to people as Dorothy. Or, come to that, with an interrogation based on punching people in the stomach.

Maybe I'm underestimating him, but I really don't see it.

Comments

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Presumably the American Gene Hunt will be an entirely different kind of person. The British Life on Mars is based on '70s cops shows, like the Sweeney and the Professionals, that were going through a gritty, working class hero phase, full of socially deprived characters, with an Ugly Britain aesthetic (hence the fact that LoM had to be shot in Manchester, hem hem - there aren't enough truly decrepit parts of London left to recreate that abandoned-warehouse Sweeney feel), whereas American 70s cop shows were shiny happy things like Starsky and Hutch and, um, things like Starsky and Hutch. So if they're going to play with viewers' memories of what things were like in the 70s, and specifically of what TV cop shows were like, they'll have to go a totally different route anyway, or viewers really will think they're on Mars. Mr Meaney won't have to play Jack Regan, he'll be Captain Dobey!

[tree_and_leaf]

That's an aspect I hadn't considered - not having seen any US cop shows of the period. It would change the character of the show quite a lot, certainly: perhaps more purely comedic?

Hum.