Awesome / Life on Mars (2006)

• Sam and Gene's synchronized desk-leaping from the pilot.
• Gene's introduction:
  Sam: All right, surprise me. What year is it?
  Gene: A word in your shell-like, pal. (slams Sam up against a filing cabinet)
  Sam: Big mistake. (shoves Gene away)
  Gene: Yeah? (sucker-punches Sam in the stomach) They reckon you've got concussion. Well, I couldn't give a tart's furry cup if half your brains are falling out. Don't ever waltz into my kingdom acting king of the jungle.
  Sam: Who the hell are you?
  Gene: Gene Hunt, your DCI. It's 1973, almost dinner time. I'm 'aving 'oops.
• After being threatened and nearly murdered for what he saw, Leonard, the key witness to an armed robbery, gets "witness protection" in the shape of a row of spotlights shining in the face of the identity parade.
  "You don't have to say anything, just point and..."
  [Leonard steps past the lights and up to Trent's face - and points.]
• Sam to Gene in 2.05: "I can just about handle you, driving like a pissed up crackhead and treating women like beanbags. But I'm going to say this once, and once only, Gene. Stay out of Camberwick Green!"
• In 1x06, during the hostage situation, Gene is shot three times, point blank. The thing is? He's got three flasks in his jacket.
• How, at the end of episode 2.01, Sam gets Tony Crane sent to an asylum, therefore preventing a future murder AND keeping his cover. AWESOME.
• Annie Cartwright's entire performance as "Cherie Blair" in episode 2.04.
• "Don't move! You're surrounded by armed bastards!"
• Chris Skelton saved the day in 2.06, showing up in the nick of time to resolve the hostage situation by shooting the hostage taker.
• Sam's suicide/epiphany, set to David Bowie's "Life on Mars", was beautiful.
• Sam confronts the woman who led him into a Honey Trap on the orders of a local gangster he was getting too close to, and when she makes the mistake of getting a bit snide about it he verbally demolishes her in response.
  Sam: You're a loser, Joni... or whatever your name is. Because you live in fear. And that's not really living at all, is it? Now, I don't live in fear. I'm alive.

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