Blood, bullets and blue stratos

Time to leap into the Cortina as Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt roar back into action in a brand new instalment of Life on Mars.

'If you think I'm gonna stand here listening to yet more of your Mary, Mungo and Midge about waiting for back-up, you're even dopier than the front of your head suggests, Tyler. I'm going right up them stairs to nail me a villain - and that, Sammy-boy, is called law enforcement!'

When detective Sam Tyler was catapulted into the alien world of 1973, he found a world where men swigged scotch before breakfast. But when Sam finally got home, he realised he'd left his heart back in the seventies amongst the fly-wing collars and pints of Skol. He missed Annie Cartwright, the woman he had fallen in love with, and perhaps - just perhaps - he even missed The Guv, that nicotine-stained, sexist, homophobic caveman who was his DCI.

Now Sam is back in '73 for good, but is this the greatest mistake he's ever made? As Sam deals with what appears to be an IRA bombing campaign, and clashes with the irrepressible Gene Hunt, the creepy little girl from the TV test card keeps warning him, "you should never have come back here, Sam.you'll see. you'll see."