captainsblog | Sam and Samantha (Reply)

That is not a reference to a long-lost Ed Wood movie, but the somewhat backward track of my Netflixage from the past 24 hours.

After our soiree for Cam's family yesterday (Eleanor has documented such with a picture-filled entry here), the three of us settled down with the recently-paroled animals to watch Now and Then- one of those films I'd totally missed when it came round in 1995. Demi Moore did an awesome job playing the then-modern-day Samantha, the narrative voice of the piece, as did her teen-edge self from 1970 being played by a much younger, but just as surprisingly grown-up-by-then, Gaby Hoffman (who we remember mostly as Uncle Buck's precocious niece). The rest of the cast was just as good in both generations, the story was touching, and the soundtrack, I am embarrassed to admit, was exactly what I was listening to on WABC 770 in 1970, Archies and all.

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Despite the missus doing far more of the work than I did to prepare for and serve the company yesterday, I was the one who slept in until 9:55 while she woke up before me and made it to church on time. So I took that hour of quiet time to begin watching the Beeb's version of Life on Mars, a leftover from last month's TV meme in the "show you're planning to watch" category. This is where Sam comes from- as reprised in the shorter-lived US version, Sam Tyler is the present-day detective who either does, or doesn't, get transported back to roughly his same job in the year 1973, to a brilliant WPC (or "policewoman," I presume ABC called her) named Annie who helps him cope, and to far more questions than answers (even though he is by no means short on solutions in his first hour of episode time).

NOT HERE SPOILER ALERT: Thank you so much, Wikipedia, for putting the Ultimate Answer to Time Travel, the Comatose State, and Everything in the second feckin paragraph of the "plot" section of the series entry. Apparently this just came out a few months ago at the very end of the British A2A sequel, but hey, we're Americans and we don't like to wait for such things, right? So I'll just try concussing myself and see if I can forget that revelation, thanks.

On the other hand, what I wouldn't mind forgetting is how much of 1973 got depicted, frighteningly accurately, in the first ten minutes of Sam's magical appearance within that year. I told Eleanor I almost bailed on it on account of the combination of the clothes, the miscogyny, and the smoking. Only the music was an improvement on Now and Then's roughly contemporary soundtrack. Bowie and the Who beat Vanity Fair and Tony Orlando any day of the week.

Ultimately, though, the good in Sam, in Annie, and even in trace quantities in the rest of his CID, overcame these horrid represssed memories and I found myself enjoying the hour, with the second to follow almost immediately on BBC1.

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Checking other alternatives for "The Great Game." None has yet to appear. Maybe I should hire a consulting detective to help.