Life on Mars will be moved to Wednesdays starting mid-season.  Yeah, that's old news already. It's been two weeks, in fact, since the news was announced, and we're just waiting for the half-season to end before seeing whether the British import will benefit in the long run.

Admittedly the show isn't really in a good place.  Last week, it found itself on third place in its time slot, beaten by CBS' Eleventh Hour (with 11.69 million viewers) and NBC's ER (with 9.80 million viewers, although this is partly because former cast member Anthony Edwards returned to the show as a guest).  Overall, it's a victim of circumstance, with CBS wheeling out really strong programs on Thursdays (Survivor and CSI) and NBC wheeling out their star comedies (The Office and 30 Rock).  Life on Mars is, in theory, supposed to benefit from the big ratings that Grey's Anatomy, the show preceding it, draws in.  But explain a drop of viewers, from 15.59 million for Grey's to 8.94 for Mars?

Will Mars, then, benefit from having Lost as its lead-in?  ah, that's old news already. It's been two weeks, in fact, since the news was announced, and we're just waiting for the half-: Lost is such mind-intensive fare, that after the show, you're probably either too tired to watch something else, or too giddy to talk about what you've seen.  It'd be interesting to see a Wednesday night sci-fi block (Pushing Daisies, Lost and Life on Mars) but when your interest starts waning as you go towards the late night programs, you know who receives the grunt.

Life on Mars isn't really a complicated program.  It even has this hard-to-explain feel-good vibe, which is unusual for its theme.  So, again, it should benefit from lots of Lost viewers… or not.  At least they can count on my viewing, and not because of the new schedule.  I'll admit; I never managed to follow Lost because my attention span's much shorter.

On tonight's episode, entitled “The Man Who Sold the World”, Sam's (Jason O'Mara) investigation of a crime leads him to realize that his father, Vic (guest star Dean Winters), may be involved. Everything moves towards the time-torn detective discovering some dark secrets—and rediscovering some of his own—and he will never come out the same again.  (This could really be a big episode—they're going to play David Bowie's “Life on Mars” again, so it could be big!)  Life on Mars airs at 10pm on ABC.


-Henrik Batallones, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: ABC, TV By The Numbers
(Image courtesy of ABC)