(Season 1, Episode 7 – “The Man Who Sold the World”)
Wow, I completely forgot, going into this episode, that it was the last until January. When I saw how the episode ended, I thought “I can’t wait to see what next week’s episode brings!” Now we’ve got to wait months to find out. Drat!
This was probably my favorite episode of the series so far. Sam’s interaction with his father blew away his moments with his mother in a previous episode. That makes sense, though, since he’s been away from his father for 30 years. There was so much to catch up on, so much to figure out.
Odd little tidbit for you: today’s my son’s fourth birthday. That made watching this episode pretty surreal. I’m happy to report, though, that I’m not planning to kidnap anyone and leave my family. Glad I could put you all at ease.
I was riveted by Sam’s moments with his father. The one scene that stood out so much, yet was such a simple gesture, was Sam smelling his father’s leather jacket. Sam missed his father and loved him. At that moment, whatever reason Vic had for leaving Sam as a child was forgotten. All Sam knew after that moment was that he was going to change history, one way or another. Will the truth make him really feel any better?
Speaking of altering history, we got a bit of a game changer in this episode. If Sam’s memories from his childood are accurate and he did see a woman in a red dress (Annie) get killed, he did change the course of history. What I’m wondering, though, is whether young Sam still went into the woods to find his father and maybe saw what went on this time. If he didn’t go into the woods, why not? Was it because old Sam changed his mind in that brief moment with them together?
One thing that’s starting to bother me is how much time Sam is spending with his mother. What I mean is, with as much communication they’ve had together thus far, she’d clearly remember him in 2008. Not only that, but I hope we get some indication later that she remembered “Luke Skywalker” once the movie comes out five years later.
It looks like Sam and Annie’s relationship is starting to turn up a bit. I’m wondering if Sam will eventually forget his fiance and have more reason to stay in 1973 than to leave and go “home.”
Finally, the mysterious phone call. What I’m confused about is why Sam figured his father’s “bottom-right corner” theory meant something more, made him rush off to read a bunch of case files and somehow translate them all within a few hours to be an address. And now we have to wait months to find out what’s in the basement of that house and why the voice wanted him to go there.
See you in January!
Songs in this episode:
Bread – “Everything I Own”
Steely Dan – “Reelin’ in the Years”
David Bowie – “Life On Mars?”
Harry Nilsson – “Spaceman”
Clacked by Keith McDuffee 
on Nov 21, 2008 @ 00:09 EST5EDT
I came here to have the address/case file/crossword eureka explained to me too.
No way I saw Sam’s Dad shooting him coming. Those 2 shots really took me by surprise. And the high 5! Such betrayal!
that high five was so cruel, but what an amazing episode! the puzzle thing was a bit of a leap for me, but i loved how it ended, and i have no clue what’s in that basement.
*POST AUTHOR*
Another thought occurred to me this morning after some thought (and coffee). If it took Sam, in this episode, to tell Annie to head off to watch over Vic and his family, why would she have been there in the “real” 1973, when she was killed? Remember, she was about to head off to a wedding. Why would she have been there without Sam there to coax her?
Maybe in “real time”, Sam’s mom had gone looking for him and his dad stumbled across her, and *she* was the woman in the red dress from Sam’s memories. In “Mars time”, Sam sent young Sam back to his mom and thus she didn’t have a reason to go into the woods looking for him. Just a guess.
*POST AUTHOR*
But Sam said, as a kid, he saw his father beat and kill the woman in the red dress. His mother wasn’t killed.
I forgot to factor in the fact that she raised him, so couldn’t have been the one killed. I thought he was concerned for his mother wearing the red dress, thinking she was the one to be killed, but since she survived to raise him, that doesn’t make sense.
Between this episode and Supernatural, I don’t know which one broke my heart more.
I do think that the woman from his childhood memory was Annie. Anyone ever see the movie 12 Monkeys? Same kind of deal there. Maybe it doesn’t fit exactly but I think it’s even worse of a fit with his mom. She obviously wasn’t killed on the same day his dad left him, she’s still alive and well in 2008.
That rickety house at the end really reminded me of Jacob’s creepy cabin on Lost.
Well, I don’t know where everyone stands on the whole Sam situation, coma, aliens, time travel… but as far as I’m concerned I’m going with coma.
They’ve hinted this a lot so it might be a misdirection, but I’ll fall for it, that’s fine.
With that in mind, much like I last week I’m looking at the episode and I don’t see a simple police case, but something with a strong connection to Sam’s mind, and double reading for the whole thing.
That how I “explain” what happened there : at first he was just remembering his dad, so he was a good guy, the father he dreamed of, he wished he could have had. He was even finally playing basket ball with him !
But as that went along, his brain was processing everything and his old memories came back, hence the change, Vic turning all bad, and everything. (Sorta) Explains the woman in dress, the clues on the bottom-right corner, etc
https://tvoholic.com/episode-reviews/life-on-mars-the-man-who-sold-the-world/
PS: Nothing to do with it, but 12 Monkeys is pretty awesome, if you haven’t seen it, you most definitely should. Just saying.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! can’t wait that long!!!!
MILD SPOILERS, BUT NOT REALLY
By the way, if nobody knew it, this was nearly beat-for-beat the season one finale of the original British series. In the British show, he was having visions of the forest and the woman in red throughout the entire season, and it was made a much bigger deal that figuring out why his father disappeared may have been his true purpose to get him sent back to the present (nobody told him this, for it was just a hunch). Unfortunately, he stays in 1973.
Oh, and Star Wars is only four years off, not five.