Radio Times

• Episode 1/8

  It's 2006, and DCI Sam Tyler is distraught after learning his girlfriend - a fellow detective - has been kidnapped by the serial killer his squad are after. Distracted by events, he is knocked unconscious by a passing car. When he awakens, he's puzzled to find himself back in 1973, as a DI starting his first day with a team working a case remarkably similar to his modern-day one…

  RT Choice (Alison Graham, 9 January 2006)

  Just when you thought the TV detective drama had been given so many twists it had tied itself up in knots, here's a genuinely innovative and imaginative take on an old genre. Writers Matthew Graham, Tony Jordan and Ashley Pharoah give the drama wit and heart, and John Simm and Philip Glenister are the perfect chalk-and-cheese cops.

• Episode 2/8

  When the team manage to arrest a slippery armed robber, DCI Hunt's not about to let a little thing like lack of evidence get in the way of securing a conviction. Sam's aghast that Gene would manufacture a case and releases the criminal, maintaining his dogged faith in the justice system. But when a young woman is badly injured as the robberies continue, he comes to question his approach.

  RT Choice (Alison Graham, 16 January 2006)

  I love the way this wonderful drama series operates on so many different levels. There's the straightforward cop-show aspect, the humour, and then there's the emotional undertow that pulls everything together.

  John Simm and Philip Glenister are brilliant as the polar-opposite detectives. The laughs come when two cultures clash - Simm is a touchy-feely, modern detective, while Glenister's Detective Chief Inspector Gene Hunt is very much a man of his time.

• Episode 3/8

  The squad investigate a fatal stabbing at a textile mill in 1973. Sam favours a forensic approach, but Gene and his men are convinced they've found the culprit - a forthright union representative. As the evidence seems to back their suspicions, Sam's got his work cut out proving the mill worker innocent. Meanwhile, back in 2006, doctors worry Sam's losing the will to live.

  RT Choice (Alison Graham, 23 January 2006)

  Anyone who did any significant growing up in the 1970s is doubtless already revelling in Life on Mars's soundtrack, so prepare yourselves for a couple more musical delights in the latest episode of this engaging time-travel drama. Sweet's Ballroom Blitz blasts forth as detective Sam Tyler (John Simm) strolls down the street in a pair of terrible flares, and later, best of all, Free's Wishing Well (ah, the memories) accompanies a piece of the action.

• Episode 4/8

  Sam uncovers evidence of police corruption and embarks on a crusade to take down local gangster Stephen Warren, who is bribing officers of the law. But he meets resistance from Gene, who sees the force's symbiotic relationship with this shady character as a necessary evil. Meanwhile, Sam tracks down his mother and learns she's got financial troubles.

  RT Choice (Alison Graham, 30 January 2006)

  Life on Mars is maintaining its central conceit quite masterfully, providing effective drama while having a few laughs with Sam's 21st-century take on his new world. This week, for instance, he takes a keen interest in the 1973 Grand National, urging anyone who'll listen to put their money on a certain Red Rum…

• Episode 5/8

  A Manchester United football supporter is murdered as a local derby approaches. Is a City fan to blame? In a bid to head off a riot on the day of the match, Sam and Gene go under cover in a local pub, hoping to find some answers among the regulars. Whose approach will be the most successful, and will their cover be blown?

  RT Choice (Alison Graham, 6 February 2006)

  Call me an old softy, but there's a moment right at the end of this episode of the delightful time-travel crime fantasy that was so unexpected and poignant, I shed a little tear. But then, the mixture of tough 1970s cop show and all-heart human drama is what marks out Life on Mars from the common herd. And there are the laughs, of course, thanks largely to the hugely likeable chalk-and-cheese partnership between DCI Gene Hunt and DI Sam Tyler (Philip Glenister and John Simm, both brilliant).

• Episode 6/8

  A hostage situation becomes personal for Sam when he discovers the deadline coincides with the switching off of his life support machine in 2006. He's determined to ensure a peaceful outcome to the stand-off, but before long he, Gene and Annie are among the captives. As the tension increases, there's a revelation about an incident in DCI Hunt's past.

  RT Choice (Alison Graham, 13 February 2006)

  Though not quite as tight as previous episodes in this exceptional series, there's still plenty of tension and another one of those unexpected moments of utter poignancy that brought a tear to my eye. Again.

• Episode 7/8

  When a drug dealer is found dead in the police cells, Sam is determined to uncover the truth. His colleagues' accounts of events that night don't ring true, but Gene is reluctant to investigate his own team and resists Sam's efforts to follow that line of enquiry. But Sam isn't about to give up - he's become convinced that solving this case is his route back to 2006.
  
  RT review (Alison Graham, 20 February 2006)
  One of the many great things about this marvellous series is its ability to cope with dramatic shifts in tone, from the hearty and upbeat to the dark and sinister. This penultimate episode is firmly in the latter category, with a deftly handled, intense and multilayered story about a suspicious death in a police cell.

• Episode 8/8

  In 1973, Sam's 29-year-old father Vic is held as a material witness in an investigation into a new and dangerous partnership in the criminal underworld. Sam remembers that his father left the Tyler household at around this time and sets out to keep the family together. Does the key to the case lie in the flashes of memory which have been plaguing him since his arrival in the Seventies?

  RT Choice (Alison Graham, 27 February 2006)

  In lesser hands, this whole episode could have been preposterous. But - and this has been typical of the whole series - it's shot through with a warmth and a humanity that make you want to believe.

  This is popular drama at its best - great writing and direction, and a central partnership between John Simm and Philip Glenister as the rough-and-ready Detective Chief Inspector Gene Hunt (an unlikely sex symbol thanks to his popularity with female viewers) that's a sheer delight.

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