Life on Mars: Season 1, Episode 5

 "What if me uncle had tits? Would he be me auntie?"

This episode is all about football, and the romanticisation of its fandom in the era before hooliganism, which we see emerging here. It says a lot about this episode that, since the 2010 World Cup, I’ve had zero interest in football, but this episode had me gripped.

Again, the weirdness and time travel isn’t foregrounded here except as a means to examine 1973 from a modern perspective, although the Test Card Girl again has a nice little cameo. And again we see Sam bond further with Gene and the rest of the gang who aren’t Ray. We seem to have almost hit on a formula where Sam, with his methodical approach, has a theory and Gene has his own more old-school approach, and there’s a jovial rivalry between them until Sam is proved right. It works well, especially as the episode works very well indeed as a whodunit.

Sam finally gets the caution right when arresting someone- at last. Someone gets arrested for cattle rustling. And it is, of course, fun to see the gang running a pub, although I’m reminded very much of why I try to avoid football pubs even today. 

The final angry speech Sam makes to the killer, who thinks football is all about violence (“You know nothing about football!”) is superb, and his relationship with the sin of the murdered man is a nice touch, as are the scenes of City and United fans walking to the match together. It’s a nicely crafted hour of telly even if, again, a little less deep and mysterious these days than it was at the time