Director: Daniel Minahan
It's time for another copycat script, with "Tuesday's Dead" following the BBC original's sixth episode. Once again, if you've never seen LOM:UK, I dare say you'll enjoy this. A hostage situation is always a great device for any cop show, so this episode kept itself focused more than usual. However, if you're a fan of the BBC series, it's becoming ever clearer why LOM:US is a pale imitation…The tell-tale moment came in the opening scene -- where the cops of the 125th precinct are having a raucous party to celebrate Ray's (Michael Imperioli) birthday. Here, Sam (Jason O'Mara) isn't keen on abandoning his work to party, until a chance encounter with Annie (Gretchen Mol) encourages him to get involved and he starts dancing on the tables to the applause of his peers -- who can't get enough of his "futuristic" dance moves, like Michael Jackson's moonwalk. Compare and contrast with LOM:UK's opening, where Sam (John Simm) arrives at work to find the mess of an all-night party he wasn't invited to.
It's a simple difference, but one that highlights why LOM:US isn't anywhere near as involving. O'Mara's Sam is disgruntled and perplexed by his situation, but he's able to embrace his circumstances and bulldoze his way through the awkwardness of Ray and Gene (Harvey Keitel) not liking him that much. Simm's Sam was clearly frightened by the whole experience (as you would be, let's face it), and he faced alienation at work because of his incongruous 21st-century morals. You're not getting any of that with LOM:US, which turns the whole thing into a very simple time-travel story with willfully bizarre fantasy sequences inserted into the plots when the "present day" drama runs dry.
Anyway, "Tuesday's Dead" echoes LOM:UK, with a hostage crisis at a local hospital, where a gunman is holding hospital staff and psychiatric ward patients hostage, and threatening to kill a hostage at 2pm unless his demands are met. Coincidentally, Sam receives word from 2008 that his life-support machine may be turned off at 2pm, so realizes he has to somehow make himself heard to girlfriend Maya (Lisa Bonet) and the hostage situation is somehow connected to his own problems.
Now, admittedly, the hostage-taker's back-story is better in the US remake. Johnny H (Stephen James King) basically wants Dr. Schwahn (Bill Irwin) to cure his disabled brother Michael H (Brad William Henke), who was lobotomized to cure hallucinations. The UK original featured a postal worker who wanted his life-story published by a journalist, which doesn't really carry the same weight.
Consequently, I found myself more invested in the US-version of the hostage crisis, although the UK-version handled the characters of Sam and Gene much better. And that's the rub: the American producers can take the British scripts, Americanize them, and rewrite some of the less successful plotting… but, they can't quite replicate the subtle layers of LOM:UK. For the British Sam, '73 was a depressing, alien environment full of antiquated policing techniques, sexist cops, racist people and personal contempt. For the American Sam, '73 is a funky place with comical differences in culture and a few grumbling colleagues.
To ignore the BBC series, "Tuesday's Dead" isn't too bad if judged by itself. As I said, the hostage crisis was quite involving, the resolution was decent (although Gene's whiskey flask cliché was a groaner), and the elaborate ways LOM:US handles its fantasy elements are quite fun -- like Sam seeing himself on a '70s soap opera, lying comatose in a hospital bed, with his afro-haired girlfriend at his side.
Keitel wasn't quite as irritating here, but Sam and Gene are still a very tepid duo, and it's disheartening to see a US cop show (who essentially created the "buddy cop" cliché with the likes of Starsky & Hutch) fail so spectacularly at getting that chemistry right. While hamstrung by certain creative decisions, O'Mara is doing well under the circumstances, and Gretchen Mol continues to be a perky delight as Annie. Ignoring the UK original, "Tuesday's Dead" was entertaining when compared to the previous five episodes, but it lacks the depth and subtleties of its forbearer.
13 November 2008
ABC, 10/9c
Cast: Gretchen Mol (Annie), Jonathan Murphy (Chris), Michael Imperioli (Ray), Harvey Keitel (Gene), Jason O'Mara (Sam), Lisa Bonet (Maya Daniels), John Cenatiempo (Sizable Ted), Michael Mulheren (Sergeant), Brian McCormack (Unit Commander), Elizabeth Hubbard (Sam's Soap Opera Mother), Grant Aleksander (Soap Opera Doctor), John Wernke (Orderly), Carmen Goodine (Erica), Stephen James King (Johnny H), Brad William Henke (Michael H), Bill Irwin (Dr. Schwahn) & Marcella Lowery (Nurse)
