This is the first full-length academic study of Life on Mars (and its successor, Ashes to Ashes), and seeks to account for the series' innovative form and popular appeal. Paying attention to issues of genre and hybridity, the book examines televisual and cultural memory, press and reception contexts and analyses the ways in which both series represent Britain in the 1970's and 1980's. The book also discusses the remakes of Life on Mars in the USA and Spain, acknowledging both the specific address to particular situations and the ways in which key elements are re-worked in different national cont