Does anyone know...

...what the ending of "Life on Mars" was all about??

I confess to total confusion.

I hadn't watched it properly since Episode One of this (second) series, owing to the fact that I normally attend an evening class on Tuesday nights, when "LOM" is broadcast. However this week as class was off, I was fortunate enough to get the chance to see the last ever episode! Hoorah! I sat with baited breath, waiting to see if all the bizarre enigmas set up in previous installments would be resolved. Would Sam get back to present day Manchester and leave the world of 1973 behind?

Erm...well, kind of. It wasn't quite as simple as that. There were lots of possibilities thrown up. I won't recount everything here, cos there's far too much detail to go into. But - SPOILERS AHEAD! - some of the "options" given were that Sam was in fact suffering from amnesia and only thought he was from the future. That his real name was Sam Williams and there was no Sam Tyler - just someone whose identity he had assumed to go undercover. And then in a bungled heist he is given the chance to go back to the future. The downside being that he has to watch all of his workmates, including love interest Annie, getting gunned down by a bunch of criminals. But hey ho! It's back to 2007, where he wakes from the coma he's been in ever since getting knocked down by a car. Except when he wakes up, he cannot relate to any of his colleagues and when he cuts himself, can't feel anything. Remembering a colleague's comment that "You know you're alive when you feel" he goes up to a roof top and jumps over the edge...to find himself back in 1973, just in time to save his colleagues from dying, but ending his connection with 2007.

But...what was the real answer? Did he really exist in 2007 or was it all a dream and he was really living in 1973 all along? Had he really reawoken and then thrown himself off the building, presumably to his death? Whatever the answer is, I think we could conclude that Sam preferred to remain in the world of 1973, but what was the true reality? I guess the writer kept it as open-ended as possible, so we could all draw our own conclusions, but I for one felt slightly frustrated. Call me a traditionalist but I would liked a nice, straightfoward explanation...

Any other ideas anyone? Help!!

There are some interesting interpretations here. And my fellow blogger Steve has some ideas of his own too!

And whatever my misgivings about the ending, it was still a very well-made show. I am SO looking forward to seeing John Simm in the season finale of Dr Who. I have a feeling he's going to be very creepy indeed...