Life On Mars (BBC1)

IN this new series from the makers of Spooks and Hustle, John Simm stars as a policeman... oh dear, I can hear you switching off already as you think to yourself, "Not another police series".

The whole point about Life On Mars is that this isn't just another police series. The makers have put a fascinating twist on the familiar cop show format.

Think The Sweeney crossed with Quantum Leap. DCI Sam Tyler recovers consciousness after a road accident in 2006 and finds himself in 1973. This takes a big leap of imagination on the part of both Tyler and the audience. But go along with it and the idea grows more appealing.

Tyler is the 21st century fish out of water in a decade when shirt collars were wide, trousers were flared and shoes had Cuban heels. What the police didn't have were investigation aids and methods that are taken for granted now, everything from computers to forensics.

Tyler is plunged into a male-dominated world of detectives operating from smoke-filled offices and who'll give a suspect a good thumping to make him talk. Women, kept in the menial jobs, are called "birds" and only good for sex and making tea.

Tyler, understandably, needs time to adjust to his new circumstances, with only a friendly female PC displaying any sign of taking seriously his claims to come from the future.

He weighs up the possibilities of his situation: either he's a time traveller, a lunatic or he's lying in a hospital bed in 2006 and none of the 1970s stuff is real.

There are signs that the last idea has some substance as he hears voices, seemingly coming from people at his bedside in 2006. "Which part of my subconscious do you hail from?", he inquires of one such visitor.

But coming to terms with 1973 gives him most problems. Telling a policeman who finds him after the accident that he was driving a Jeep ("a military vehicle?", asks the copper) and saying he needs his mobile ("your mobile what?") is more likely to get him locked up than any sympathy.

It's amazing how easy it is to say the wrong thing. When he asks the operator for a Virgin number, she rebukes him with the comment, "Don't start that sexy business with me".

And when he inquires of a colleague in the office where his PC terminal is, he's asked: "What do you want - a constable up here?".

Clearly, the scene is set for more misunderstandings of a similar nature as Tyler adjusts to Life On Mars (and yes, the David Bowie song was playing on his iPod at the time of the accident).

All this is totally ludicrous if not downright daft, but there's a good enough cast - led by Simm's Tyler and Philip Glenister as his tough new boss - to make you go along with the ruse and ensure it isn't just an exercise in Seventies nostalgia.