TV Tidbits 54 - Life on Mars

Mars' series finale airs tonight (sniff!) and TVGuide.com has a (very) little sneak peek of tonight's episode:

In a rare instance of mutual forethought and cooperation between producers and a network, ABC's Life on Mars will wrap up its abbreviated freshman run this Wednesday at 10 pm/ET with a proper series finale, bringing to a close Detective Sam Tyler's time-tripping odyssey. Here, executive producers Scott Rosenberg and Josh Appelbaum reflect on their Mars journey, reveal the one song that done them wrong, preview the "straight-out scary" follow-up they have planned, and promise closure for fans of their previous project, October Road.

TVGuide.com: The episode airing this Wednesday, is it more or less what you had envisioned the series finale as being? Or is it slightly different, if only because you had less time to build up to it?
Josh Appelbaum: We always knew that the season finale was going to be this episode, and we always knew what our series finale would be. Basically we went to [ABC] and said, "Our ratings are grim. We want to shoot a series finale and a season finale; the only difference is Act 6." They thought about it for three minutes and came back to us with: "We've got good news and we've got bad news. The good news is we will let you shoot your series finale. But we will not let you shoot a season finale." So [you'll get] big reveals instead of a bunch of cliffhangers. And we had planned the best [Season 1] cliffhangers, too! [Laughs] But they will now never be seen.

TVGuide.com: Since the original BBC series itself had a short run, did Life on Mars lend itself to a sooner-rather-than-later wrap-up?
Appelbaum: They're doing versions of this [show] all around the world now, and there's a spin-off on the BBC, Ashes to Ashes. I think the concept has the potential for great longevity. The BBC wrapped theirs up for, like, contractual reasons. In our case, it was unfortunately about "Wrong time, wrong place."

TVGuide.com: What can you reveal about the "three tasks" Sam must complete to return to the present day?
Appelbaum: The jumping off point is that his mother and father come back into this episode in a big, big way. His mother comes to the station house and says that his father has reappeared and kidnapped a little boy. So, basically, Sam has to save himself, as it were. And it goes from there.

TVGuide.com: Did you come away from this experience with any new "cautionary tales" for writer-producers?
Appelbaum: Don't fall in love with your show, because it will leave you. Television shows, I find, are like women.

TVGuide.com: In today's day and age, it seems near-impossible to affect "course correction" once ratings start trending down.
Appelbaum: It's a great tragedy. There's definitely a bit of a 'box office mentality' to television now, where if it doesn’t 'happen' in the first couple of airings, you're doomed.
Scott Rosenberg: We keep saying that with this mentality, there wouldn't have been some of the great shows in television — Hill Street Blues, Seinfeld, on and on. A lot of those shows didn't come out of the gate strong, but people were able to stick with them longer and let the audience build. Unfortunately, we're not living in that climate anymore.

TVGuide.com: Was working in a guest role for Jason O'Mara's real-life wife, Paige Turco (playing a comely childhood neighbor of Sam's), always part of your Season 1 plan?
Appelbaum: She was always part of the plan. It's like, wow, what a great resource to have! You never know what kind of chemistry they're going to have when they're a real-life couple, but they were great together.

TVGuide.com: Turning to the music of Life on Mars, was there any one song you wanted to use but simply couldn't get cleared?
Appelbaum: We write every song into the script, not after the fact, because the music is so important. And only one person denied us.
Rosenberg: Because he thought the show sucked. [Laughs]
Appelbaum: It was Episode 6, and Sam describes when he met Maya (played by Lisa Bonet) for the first time. He flashes back to the scene and "Tom Traubert's Blues" is playing. It was so good. Tom Waits approves all of his licensing, and he sent an email saying he thought the show was [bad]. It was pretty funny.

UPDATE: EW.com's Ausiello has an interview with the exec producers, too, and his sheds a wee bit more light on the finale -

In the UK version, the fate of Sam was left very much up in the air. Please tell me your ending will be a little less ambiguous.
JOSH APPELBAUM: One hundred percent. There is a very clear and definitive answer as to what his journey has been about and how all the pieces over the past 17 hours play into that journey. At the same time, we hope, like all great finales, it still leaves things open to interpretation. But if there's one thing we feel pretty good about it's that in the afterlife of Life on Mars on DVD or wherever, it will exist as a cohesive, complete thought that will all make sense.

Did you always plan to conclude your version differently?
SCOTT ROSENBERG: Right from the beginning. Anybody with access to Wikipedia can find out how the [UK version] ended. So we were certain we wanted to do it differently. And it was kind of in prep on the pilot that we stumbled upon what our ultimate ending was. We never did anything that wouldn't be explained by this ending. And we also left clues along the way, so people that go back and watch it a second time will go, "So that's why they did this." There were names, numbers, all kinds of things.

How will the finale be structured? Will there be the standard case to solve, or is it all about wrapping up Sam's story?
ROSENBERG: There's a standard case, but it's all a culmination episode. It was going to be the same if it was the season finale or a series finale. The only difference is if it was a season finale it would have ended with a very different Act Six, with cliffhangers and that sort of thing. [Sam's] mother and father play very heavily in it. Sam's emotional journey was really about his past and his family... And without saying too much, there's a major climax with Sam and Annie's journey together.

Will Lisa Bonet be in the episode?
ROSENBERG: She is not in it. She was for a half-second, and then we decided not to.

Is that a hint as to what decade he ultimately ends up in?
[Crickets]
APPELBAUM: [to Scott] Good job stumbling into that one, Rosenberg. [Laughs]

You like how I did that?
ROSENBERG: Nice!
APPELBAUM: Unbelievable!

This isn't my first time at the rodeo.
ROSENBERG: Let's start over: Lisa Bonet is in the episode. [Laughs]

Too late! Moving on, will the show definitely be on DVD?
ROSENBERG: Oh, yeah.

There weren't clearance issues with all the popular music you featured?
ROSENBERG: We only cleared songs if they allowed us to use it forever, and it wasn't that difficult. Music is so important to us, both in this and in October Road. Remember that one, Michael?

Hmm… it rings a bell.
ROSENBERG: [Laughs] You're like, "I tried not to."
APPELBAUM: [Laughs] He's like, "It was a bad case of indigestion."

Last question: What's the deal with the tiny robot?
ROSENBERG: The robot is totally explained away [in the finale]. By Wednesday night at 11 you will know what the robot is, and I'm sure you will be annoyed. [Laughs]