MUMBAI: John Simm is transported back to the Seventies in Life on Mars. This eight part new drama series will shortly start airing on BBC One.

Kudos Film and Television has made the show. The company's joint MD Jane Featherstone who is also the executive producer of Life on Mars says, "Life on Mars is a fantastic idea which takes the cop show genre and gives it a unique, humorous and irresistible twist. By taking a character of our time and throwing him headfirst into our recent past, it gives us a chance to explore what makes us who we are today."

Simm plays Sam Tyler, a driven and ambitious young detective who is determined to keep the streets of 21st Century Manchester safe. However, the hunt for a serial killer becomes a personal vendetta when Sam suspects his girlfriend and colleague Maya (Archie Panjabi, Yasmin) has been kidnapped by the very man he's tracking down. But after a near fatal car accident Sam wakes up, dazed and confused, in 1973, struggling to understand what's real.

What follows is Sam's 21st century account of Seventies life feeling like a fish out of water. He must come to terms with an unfamiliar environment and an archaic CID unit where, using his modern know-how, he is integral to the unit's investigation process as he learns how to adapt to their old-fashioned technologies and etiquettes.

Sam's new boss is hard-nosed DCI Gene Hunt, who gets results by trusting his gut instinct and, all too often, sheer brute force. The rest of his team have similar attitudes towards their work. The only member of the team who has a less unruly and bigoted attitude is WPC Annie Cartright. She helps Sam in his quest to find the truth about his new circumstances, as well as battling to lock up the criminals of Seventies Manchester.

BBC controller of continuing drama series and head of independent drama John Yorke explains: "The beauty of Life on Mars is that each week it concentrates on catching criminals through two completely opposing styles of policing. We put a modern DI bang in the world of the old school copper and so explore two totally foreign worlds."