Bring Me Sunshine

_****½

Sam is convinced that the man they're chasing in 1973 is the same criminal he's seen in visions trying to tamper with his life support in 2006.

The review for "Take a Look at the Lawmen" can be read here.

Having lost what he believes was his last chance of getting home, Sam Tyler (John Simm) has grown accustomed to living in 1973, and his attitude has slowly been adjusting to match that of those around him. Sam's influence on his partners has been clear since his arrival, but the changes to his own demeanor have been far more subtle until now, when his frustration in regards to his situation have made him more cynical than ever before.

At the crime scene, Sam forces the search party to wear rubber gloves and sweep the area in a solid line, directing them on what to do and how to do it. While Sam is dealing with these men, Gene (Philip Glenister) and the rest of the department watch from the sidelines, in part mocking and in part studying the technique. Gene allows Sam to use his modern techniques because he knows that Sam's good at his job, and he wants to understand how he, himself, can be better. In learning more about how Sam runs things, Gene can cherry pick what he thinks works best and use them as his own in the future, but he doesn't participate here for a number of reasons: the first is that he doesn't want to appear weak in front of his men, taking orders from a subordinate that most of them don't particularly like. The other reason is that he's still unsure of the technique himself, and should it turn out not to work, he won't have liked to have put his name to it in support. Gene shows his support for Sam here simply by not opposing his ideas, which is a far cry from their previous encounters where Sam had to fight tooth and nail for even the smallest victory.

When Sam believes that he has a chance to take down Tony Crane (Marc Warren) he abandons his "by the book" attitude, not bothering to look for Gene, specifically telling both Ray (Dean Andrews) and Chris (Marshall Lancaster) not to look either, and goes after Tony immediately. His determination to follow his instincts, despite the evidence stacked against him, when he is so often against Gene doing the same thing, is an incredible indication of how his situation has made him more like Gene than he would care to admit. Even as Gene explains the situation Sam refuses to listen to reason, convinced that stopping Tony in 1973 will prevent a number of murders in the future but being unable to give his reasoning without appearing insane. It eventually gets to the point where Sam asks Tony's girlfriend Eve (Yasmin Bannerman) to plant evidence in Tony's desk to facilitate his arrest, stating that he'd "never fit anyone up who...didn't deserve it," only to realize as he's speaking that, over time, he has started turning into Gene Hunt. In the end, Sam confronts Gene, angry that he didn't back Sam from the beginning with Gene spitting back that he did, and they would have gotten everything that they needed to put Tony away had Sam simply waited to do things properly, but Sam is so convinced that he's always on his own that he took matters into his own hands. Sam and Gene's role reversal since their first appearance is incredibly well done here, and perfectly understandable given what they're investigating. It's interesting that, in a situation where they should both be gaining a good understanding of who the other is and how they operate, they instead continue to butt heads because they're so used to standing for opposing views that when they agree on something they wonder if, perhaps, they've lost sight of who they really are outside of their rivalry.

Gene tries to justify pinning the crime on a random criminal by saying that "the world's gettin' tougher, [and] the police have to match it," and that they need to buy more time from the press to investigate the crime. What happens is that Gene's men abduct a criminal from his father's funeral, tossing around the urn containing the father's ashes in an attempt to intimidate the man innocent of this particular crime. It's understandable that Gene would imagine that this will get him the results he wants, but it's such a violation of human rights and dignity that it's difficult to remain in his corner as he pulls this kind of act, in itself a crime.

Sam confronts Annie (Liz White) because he had, in the future, arrested Tony, and believes that Tony had gotten out of prison on some kind of technicality, returning to Sam's hospital in an effort to kill him. Annie had thought that Sam had gotten over his delusions of being from the future and had come to accept reality, but in light of this new information she reminds him that "[he] can't get at [Tony] from a padded cell." Annie had made it clear to Sam that she was worried about him, and that he needed to seek professional help, and he knew that the more he spoke to her about this subject the more troubling it was to her, causing her not only emotional distress, but likely leading to the eventuality of her reporting his odd behavior to authorities. In continuing to torment Annie in this way, Sam risks having himself committed, at which point he's far less likely to find a way back to his own time. In trying to distract Sam from his investigation, Annie instigates an advancement in their relationship, asking him to take her out for a night on the town, and the two lean in for a kiss that very nearly comes to happen. Through a series of roadblocks that halts their date, Annie comes to fear Sam, to fear his actions and what he's willing to do to justify what he believes to be true, knowing that he used his own insanity against Tony in order to make him appear insane and have him locked up against his will. In the end, Sam makes Annie the new DC, and while it's completely deserved, it also makes it appear as though he's simply doing so in order to appease Annie's doubts about him and to make her less likely to report any of his behavior.

Life on Mars is very fortunate to be working with such incredible actors, and even the guest actors, Warren and Bannerman (Tony and Eve, respectively) are fantastic in their roles. Simm conveys Sam's phantom pains from the future, reacting to the torture being inflicted on his comatose body, very well, slowly growing weaker as his life support drains from his future body. The most outstanding performance is given by White, who has mastered the art of subtle expression with maximum emotion; the look on Annie's face as Sam discredits Tony through his own delusion, sure that he's faking and unsure of how to help him is absolutely heartbreaking, as he has, at least in her mind, admitted that he's insane and refuses to do anything about it.

The episode opens on a dream sequence shot to look like an alien abduction, where Tony breaks into Sam's hospital room in 2006 stating that he's going to murder Sam in the coming hours. Director S. J. Clarkson chooses to reintroduce us to Gene as he smashes through Sam's front door, in effect commenting on the growing relationship between the two, as it remains mildly abusive but they very clearly need one another. Clarkson ties the current and future Tony together through the whistling of the same tune as both versions of him are introduced to the plot, setting Sam off on a quest to destroy the young Tony before the elderly Tony can do the same to him. There are a number of nice touches where Sam is affected by the tortures being done to his comatose body, but the most effective is when Sam's vision blacks out and makes him blind as Tony shuts down the lights in the future. The narrative closes as Sam receives a phone call, able, for the first time, to speak back to whoever's on the other end, and being told that his job's almost done, that the rest of his team can't find out why he's there, and he can return home soon. In tracing the call Sam learns that it came from Hyde, where Gene believes he had transferred from, and Sam genuinely begins to wonder if Annie's right in questioning his sanity.

Written by Matthew Graham, this story has three main focuses: Sam's tactics becoming more like Gene's, Gene's tactics becoming more like Sam's, and Annie's concerns regarding Sam's direction in life. At the top of the episode Gene gets into a spat with the press, and only sees them calm down when Sam gives a statement. Trying to follow Sam's lead, Gene prepares himself to speak to the reporters, only to come up with a loss for words and having to be coached through the situation once more by Sam. In trying to warn Eve about the dangers she faces in her relationship with Tony, he tells her some very specific and disturbing information, including the fact that Tony will rape and murder her in thirty year's time, and if he had learned anything from his interactions with Annie he would know to avoid such details if he wants to change Eve's point of view. Tony, in fact, plans to marry Eve and make her a partner in his business, which Sam is well aware of from 2006, but Eve is convinced that he's simply bothered by the thought of "a colored bird with a bit of power," and refuses to have any further dealings with him. For all the empowering statements he makes about women in the force, Sam neglects to stand up for his one true friend in this time as Annie enters the room with information pertinent to the investigation; Gene tells her that the men are talking, interrupting her every time she speaks to tell her to leave, and Sam simply lets Gene's words slide, doing nothing to support the only person that ever sticks up for him. Finally forced to reveal the true nature of his arrival in 1973, Sam tells his story, and quickly turns it against Tony, claiming that it's a fabrication created by Tony to discredit Sam, leading Gene to then have Tony admitted to a mental hospital. Sam's belief that, in this case, the ends justify the means is somewhat disturbing, and a curious direction for the man who was formerly so strict about his stance on justice.

In the previous series, the mystery had revolved around the fact that Sam was, indeed, a man from 2006 trapped in 1973, and how he would manage to get home. Here we are introduced to the idea that he is, in actuality, living a delusion, and is a man from 1973 who only believes he's from 2006 thanks, in part, to the head trauma he had suffered in the first episode. Sam's journey this series is likely to involve a decent into madness as he questions his actuality, creating another roadblock in his relationship with Annie, which had finally grown romantic here until she grew afraid of who he was becoming.

The review for "Every Son Kills His Father" can be read here.