(S01E12) To begin, I know exactly where they shot the opening scene for tonight's episode. It was in the New York Transit Museum. It's an old subway station that was converted into a museum and includes subway cars from different decades. I visited there recently, which allowed me to recognize some of the background advertisements from the scene.

In the original British series, it was determined that Sam was in a coma. In this series, I think he's in some sort of shared virtual reality. This is simply a hunch based on what we've learned so far.

On to the actual episode...

(S01E11) It's been a while since Sam had his visions. I missed them. However, I think tonight's episode overdid it a little with the Wizard of Oz references. Sam is over the rainbow. We got it. We just don't know why.

I'm glad the creators wrapped up the Maria storyline as quickly as they did. They could only milk her daddy issues for so long, and Sam and Gene have way too much for a bromance going on of their own to let a little thing like sleeping with the boss' daughter interfere.

(S01E10) Every dramatic series has the occasional "comedy" episode, and Life on Mars is no exception. This one was definitely intended for humor which could be confirmed by the cameo appearance of Wallace "Inconceivable" Shawn, who apparently ran The X-Files a few decades before Mulder and Scully investigated the paranormal.

This was a good episode and served several purposes. The first of which was to determine that whatever happened to Sam is not any sort of alien-related experience, thereby getting the most silly and cliché theories out of the way. My only question at this stage is whether the explanation for Sam's predicament is going to be scientific, magical or a combination of both (technomancy, perhaps?). The episode added to the confusion about this by nicknaming Wallace Shawn's forensic investigator "The Sorcerer."