Life on Mars TV Show Origins
The programme was originally conceived in 1998, when writers Matthew Graham, Tony Jordan and Ashley Pharoah were sent on a break to the seaside resort of Blackpool by Kudos Film & Television, later best known as the makers of Spooks and Hustle, to come up with new programme ideas. Originally titled Ford Granada, after the popular car of the 1970s, the series was rejected by the BBC. “Back then, broadcasters just weren’t comfortable with something like that, something that wasn’t set in the real world and that had a fantasy element to it,” Graham later told SFX Magazine. The initial idea at this time was for a more humorous, pre-watershed series that overtly mocked the styles and attitudes of the 1970s, with comic actor Neil Morrissey envisaged as the central character.
Later, Channel 4 drama executive John Yorke picked up the script and it was substantially redeveloped, with the emergence of the double act between the two main characters, Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt. However, senior management eventually decided not to pursue the idea. “[Channel 4] people just said ‘It’s going to be silly’,” Graham later told the Radio Times. However, the series eventually attracted the attention of the BBC Wales Head of Drama, Julie Gardner, who in turn persuaded the overall Head of Drama at the BBC, Jane Tranter, to commission the programme from BBC Wales for BBC One. John Yorke left Channel 4 to rejoin the BBC and together he and Julie Gardner acted as joint commissioning editors on the show for its entire run.
The programme’s central character was originally to have been called “Sam Williams”, but Kudos felt that this was not striking enough and asked Graham to come up with an alternative surname. (This would later be referenced in the final episode of series two.) Asking his young daughter for her opinion, she suggested “Sam Tyler”, which became the character’s name. Graham subsequently discovered that his daughter had named him after Rose Tyler from Doctor Who (another BBC Wales production, for which he would later write the episode “Fear Her” and in which John Simm starred as The Master in Season 3). The initial geographical setting was to be London; this was then changed to Leeds, and finally to Manchester, as part of a BBC initiative to make more programmes in that city.
Download ‘Life on Mars’ Season 1 DVD
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