SAM TYLER

' DCI Sam Tyler' is a fictional character in the BBC One sci-fi police drama ''Life on Mars''. He is portrayed by John Simm.

Contents

Fictional character history

Fate

Fictional character history

Sam Tyler is a DCI in the 2006 Greater Manchester Police force. He was born in 1969 and was the son of Vic and Ruth Tyler. He joined the force at the age of 19 in 1988 (Series 1 Episode 2).
After being hit by a car, Sam wakes to find himself in 1973 - only four years after his birth. Unsure whether he is in a coma and dreaming, mad, or if he has actually gone back in time, he finds he is a DI in the contemporary police force of the age, starting his first day in a new precinct, and has to prove himself to his new DCI, Gene Hunt.
Gene is a man who likes to throw his weight around and thinks of himself as the sheriff in a western. Gene acts first and thinks later, and this results in several punch-ups between him and Sam, who believes in by-the-book policing.
Over time their differences complement each other rather than clash, and a series of cases are solved when the two men put their heads together. But Sam, a 21st century police officer, has to deal with a strange world full of cigarette-smoking, gum-chewing, unreconstructed police officers of the early 1970s, as well as punch-now-think-later policing methods and crude forensic techniques, and there are times when he is deeply stressed by this, as well as by recurring hints that reality is not what it seems.
The only people who reach out to Sam are a barman, Nelson, and a young woman police officer, Annie Cartwright, who tries to reconcile Sam to 1973 as well as providing a romantic interest.

Fate

In the last episode, the voice of his surgeon appears as a new character, DCI Frank Morgan, who tells Sam that he has amnesia brought on by a car accident and has really been sent from Hyde to infiltrate the rotten A Division. As Gene, Annie, Ray and Chris face a seemingly unavoidable fate when an undercover sting goes wrong, Sam comes out of his coma in the present.
However, finding that what seems to be the real world no longer feels realistic, he jumps from the roof of the police station, falling into another coma and back in 1973 where he is able to save Gene and the team.
Sam Tyler turns off the radio when he next receives a communication from 2006, implying that he prefers 1973.