User:Jack Yan/Sam Hunt
Sam Hunt is a fictional New Zealand character spun off from the British TV series Life on Mars.
When American and Spanish networks began remaking the series, a remake was proposed in New Zealand. However, due to lack of funding (television budgets had been diverted to the purchase of the documentary, Billie Piper’s Swindon), it was decided that a poetry anthology was the best way to realize the adapted scripts.
Much-criticized by British fans of the original, the adaptation combined the Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt characters into a composite, Sam Hunt. Like Gene Hunt, he was a drunken bastard, but like Sam Tyler, considered out of place within his environment. The original choice to play Hunt was actor Jon Gadsby.
The majority of the poems show Hunt to be a drunk television celebrity and after-dinner speaker.
Changes to the setting[edit | edit source]
The action was transferred from Mars, where the original took place, to Auckland, though fans objected to the city being too unreal. A revised script was written placing Hunt in Porirua, New Zealand, where Temuera Morrison’s character in Once Were Warriors could make cameos. The Porirua setting could also be used in providing a reason for Hunt to drink.
The series was to take a longer period and actually began in 1967, with the pilot episode called ‘Bottle Creek’, the name of the pub at which Hunt drinks with his colleagues.
This was retained in the anthology.
Rather than trying to return to the future, Hunt attempts to get back to sobriety with each poem, but it becomes apparent by the middle of the work that it is unlikely to happen. The end of the anthology, set in 1981 in an episode called ‘Running Scared’, sees him meeting a group of women stealing champagne, whom he calls ‘The Bolly Nickers’.
Other adaptations[edit | edit source]
The Gene Hunt character was also adapted for American television, and actually made it on to TV screens. It was originally trialled in an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Played by Irish actor Colm Meaney, the American Gene Hunt spoke with a Californian accent. However, original producer David E. Kelley revealed that he had misread the notes from the original writers, and instead of making Hunt into ‘An overweight, over-the-hill, tobacco-stained, borderline alcoholic homophobe with an inferiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding,’ had turned him into a ‘small, sensitive, non-smoking, teetotal homosexual with a healthy obsession with male bondage.’
It was believed that the misreading occurred through Kelley being distracted by perving at his wife, Michelle Pfeiffer, or at least 20-year-old images of his wife, Michelle Pfeiffer.
Hunt’s rank, however, was unchanged: he was made the equivalent of the British Detective Chief Inspector in the LAPD, and was called ‘Chief’ for short.
The character, originally meant to lead in TV show, was relegated to background roles after fans did not take well to him.
Hunt was recast prior to Life on Mars’ American version airing in the fall. After feedback from the ruling Republican Party, a tougher portrayal was required, and the role went to Harvey Dent.
Spain[edit | edit source]
A Spanish adaptation is in production for TV network Antena-3, but the character has been renamed Juan Hunt, played by Antonio Garrido.