Sam Tyler
Encyclopedia
DCI/DI Sam Tyler is a fictional character
in BBC One
's science fiction
/police procedural
drama
, Life on Mars
.
In the original British version of Life on Mars, Tyler is played by John Simm
and in the American version he is played by Jason O'Mara
.
within the programme. During the first episode
, Tyler is hit by a car in 2006 and wakes up in 1973, finding himself working in the same police station
and location as he did in 2006, albeit as a DI (Detective Inspector) rather than his 2006 rank of DCI (Detective Chief Inspector).
Throughout both series, it remains unclear to both the audience and character whether he is mad or in a coma or has actually travelled back in time
.
(Philip Glenister
). During the two series, Tyler frequently clashes with Hunt regarding their different policing methods. Tyler, being a 21st century detective is forensically aware and procedurally correct, whereas Hunt values violence, corruption and gut instinct in order to catch criminals. However, eventually the two develop a love-hate relationship
and respect each others input.
Throughout the series, Tyler frequently hears and sees things from his life in 2006. While in 1973, Tyler often sees moving images from the present day on his television, hears loved ones and medical staff talk about him and to him through phones and portable radios, along with being stalked by Test Card Girl (Rafaella Hutchinson & Harriet Rogers) and experiencing recurring hallucinations.
Eventually, Tyler becomes good friends with Annie Cartwright
(Liz White) and is the only character in the programme that he reveals his situation to. Tyler also becomes friends with Chris Skelton
(Marshall Lancaster
) who attempts to learn from Tyler's modern policing methods, and is introduced to tape-recording interviews by Tyler, something which was not standard procedure in the 1970s. However, Tyler often clashes with Ray Carling
(Dean Andrews
), as he views Tyler as stopping him from being promoted to Detective Inspector.
While in 1973, Tyler finds himself investigating many crimes with the CID team from serial killers
, armed robberies
, murders
, a hostage situation
and a suspicious death in police custody
.
During episode four
and episode eight
, Tyler meets his mother Ruth (Joanne Froggatt
) and his father, Vic (Lee Ingleby
). Despite thinking that helping them and persuading his father to stay with his mother may enable him to return to 2006, this plan is revealed to be unsuccessful.
, Acting DCI Frank Morgan (Ralph Brown
) is introduced as a new character to temporarily oversee CID while Gene Hunt is wrongly suspected of murder. Tyler is convinced that Morgan is his surgeon attempting to revive him from his coma in 2006. However, Morgan reveals that Tyler is actually DCI Sam Williams of C-Division at Hyde and a part of M.A.R.S. (Metropolitan Accountability and Reconciliation Strategy) a taskforce to deal with corruption in the police force. He also reveals that "Williams" was sent undercover with a fake identity as DI Sam Tyler to infiltrate Hunt's team, but developed severe concussion and amnesia after a bad car accident on the way. After finding evidence to substantiate Morgan's claims, a distraught Tyler begins to doubt if he is actually from the future.
Morgan eventually convinces Tyler that exposing Gene Hunt and his CID team while on an undercover operation to catch a violent armed robber, Leslie Johns (Sean Gilder
), will enable him to return to 2006. While the undercover operation is in progress on the train that Leslie Johns and his team is attempting to rob, Chris, Gene, Ray and Annie all come under fire and are caught out in the open. Tyler rushes to Frank Morgan who is observing the situation from inside the train tunnel and asks for his promised armed assistance. Morgan refuses and tells Tyler that they are to let Hunt and the rest of CID die in the fire-fight, as it is the perfect way to expose Hunt. After talking to Morgan, Tyler wakes up in 2006.
Upon finally waking up and recovering in 2006, he becomes a shell of his former self, and remains emotionally scarred and haunted by the promise he made to Annie in 1973, to return and save her from the fire-fight on the train. After alienating his cold, unsympathetic colleagues and confiding to his elderly mother, he commits suicide by joyfully taking a running jump off the police station roof.
Tyler then re-appears in the railway tunnel in 1973 and promptly kills Leslie Johns, saving the team's lives as he promised. After being thanked by the team and kissing Annie, Tyler receives a message on Gene's car radio from 2006 that he is "slipping away", implying that he has chosen to stay in 1973. This time however, Tyler finds the strength to turn the radio off and happily rides off into the sunset with Hunt and the rest of the team.
Series creators Ashley Pharoah
and Matthew Graham
have confirmed that they intended Sam's jump to be suicide. In an interview with the Manchester Evening News
, Graham states that Sam is now in the afterlife, where time lasts an eternity compared to the few seconds of the suicide jump: "The truth is, when I wrote it, what I was trying to say is that he's died, and that for however long that last second of life is going to be, it will stretch out for an age, as an eternity for him. And so when he drives off in that car, he's really driving off into the afterlife."
set in 1981, it is revealed that Sam Tyler lived for a further seven years. Tyler later married Annie Cartwright and died in 1980 after unintentionally driving his car into a river while in pursuit of a suspect, from which his body was never recovered. Jackie Queen described Sam and Annie as the "happiest couple" she had ever seen and that Tyler was the "most loved man she had ever met."
During the first episode of series three of Ashes to Ashes, the nature of his death is raised when Alex Drake
discovers a witness statement implied to have been written by Gene Hunt with various parts blacked out, accompanied by Alex seeing visions of a man with injuries to the left side of his face dressed in police tunic and greatcoat. In the second episode, DCI Jim Keats, an officer from the Discipline and Complaints department, intent on removing Gene Hunt, states he believes Gene killed Sam Tyler. In the fifth episode, Gene destroys Tyler's clothes (which Alex had requested from Manchester) and the censored file in order to prevent her from learning the truth about his death. In the following episode, a suspect with very different physical appearance and a known fantasist tries to convince Alex that he is Sam Tyler after undergoing extensive plastic surgery, and that he is from the future, quoting Sam's usual speech in the Life on Mars introductions, claiming that nobody else is real- although he still seems to be pleased when he, Gene and Alex are in the same room, calling them the 'Three Musketeers'- and avoiding Alex's attempts to test him for future knowledge by claiming that such details are forgotten after too long in the past (Although everyone concerned only humours him to get information about the current prison riot). Gene tells Alex that he helped Sam fake his own death, meaning Sam was still alive but had disappeared into thin air.
During the penultimate episode of series three, after being asked by Alex Drake if Hunt murdered Tyler, Hunt explains how after a few weeks of Tyler acting "weird" he helped him fake his own death as Tyler "had to go". In the finale, it is revealed that some years later, Sam Tyler had taken Gene's offer of going "to the pub" - accepting his death in the real world, and moving on from his life in the past.
when, after discovering that the entire CID are being bribed to help a local crime boss, he tries to end the corrupt arrangement.
For the majority of his time in 1973, Tyler wears a black leather jacket
with jeans
or plain trousers and typical shoes of the day, with his collar spread out and no tie, unlike the rest of Hunt's CID. During his brief showing in 2006, he wears a formal dark navy suit with a tie. Tyler also wears a St. Christopher pendant, reflecting his time traveller status as St. Christopher is the patron saint of travellers.
Tyler and Chris Skelton eventually become friends, with Chris seeing him as a role model and attempts to learn from his modern policing techniques, such as tape-recording interviews and forensic awareness. However, Chris finds himself "torn between" Tyler's methods and Hunt's. Chris later states that he's not sure if they were friends, Sam was "more of a mentor, really".
Throughout the two series, Ray Carling and Tyler often clash. According to the series website, this is because Ray was seen as the "golden boy" and had applied for promotion before Tyler arrived as the new Detective Inspector. Carling frequently insults Tyler and disobeys his orders, and has an extreme loyalty to Hunt which is often a source of conflict. According to the series website, they also clash because Carling is a similar character to Hunt.
Despite the love hate relationship and constant disagreements Tyler and Hunt suffer, they eventually become to respect each others methods, with Hunt respecting Tyler due to his tireless and methodical investigation techniques and, while not agreeing with all his methods, Tyler respecting Hunt's ability to get results. The creators have stated that his is because Hunt "sees a lot of Tyler" in himself. They both appear to trust each other as in the seventh episode
of the second series, Hunt calls Tyler first after he wakes up to appear to have killed a man while Tyler appears to be the only officer who believes that Hunt is innocent and eventually he is proved right.
During the first episode
of Ashes to Ashes, Carling's attitude towards Tyler appeared to have softened. Carling acknowledged Tyler's bravery in saving his colleagues during the last episode of Life on Mars, but he still criticises his tendency to disobey Hunt.
Chris Skelton operates the receiver for a wireless bug, and boasts that he had been taught about such things by "The great Sam Tyler himself."
Among the many disparaging nicknames that Hunt bestows upon him during the course of the series, Tyler earns at least one positive nickname: the "Boy Wonder".
Character (arts)
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
in BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
's science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
/police procedural
Police procedural
The police procedural is a subgenre of detective fiction which attempts to convincingly depict the activities of a police force as they investigate crimes. While traditional detective novels usually concentrate on a single crime, police procedurals frequently depict investigations into several...
drama
Dramatic programming
Dramatic programming in the UK, or television drama and television drama series in the US, is television program content that is scripted and fictional along the lines of √a traditional drama. This excludes, for example, sports television, television news, reality show and game shows, stand-up...
, Life on Mars
Life on Mars (TV series)
Life on Mars is a British television series broadcast on BBC One between January 2006 and April 2007. The series combines elements of science fiction and police procedural....
.
In the original British version of Life on Mars, Tyler is played by John Simm
John Simm
John Simm is an English stage and screen actor. In recent years he is best known for his roles as Sam Tyler in the detective drama Life on Mars and as The Master in the revival of the science fiction series Doctor Who, but he has also starred in many highly acclaimed award-winning television...
and in the American version he is played by Jason O'Mara
Jason O'Mara
Jason O'Mara is an Irish actor who starred in the American television network dramas In Justice and Life on Mars. He now appears in the Fox series Terra Nova.- Career :He performed with The Royal Shakespeare Company...
.
2006
The character of Sam Tyler is the main protagonistProtagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
within the programme. During the first episode
Series 1: Episode 1 (Life on Mars)
The first episode of the first series of the British time travel police procedural television series, Life on Mars, was first broadcast on 9 January 2006. The episode, known erroneously as "The Crash", was produced by Kudos Film & Television for BBC One....
, Tyler is hit by a car in 2006 and wakes up in 1973, finding himself working in the same police station
Police station
A police station or station house is a building which serves to accommodate police officers and other members of staff. These buildings often contain offices and accommodation for personnel and vehicles, along with locker rooms, temporary holding cells and interview/interrogation rooms.- Facilities...
and location as he did in 2006, albeit as a DI (Detective Inspector) rather than his 2006 rank of DCI (Detective Chief Inspector).
Throughout both series, it remains unclear to both the audience and character whether he is mad or in a coma or has actually travelled back in time
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
.
1973
Upon waking in 1973, Tyler finds himself working at the same station he is based at in 2006, under a "rough-around-the-edges" boss, DCI Gene HuntGene Hunt
DCI Gene Hunt is a fictional character in BBC One's science fiction/police procedural drama Life on Mars and its sequel, Ashes to Ashes. The character is portrayed by Philip Glenister in both Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, whereas in the American version he is portrayed by Harvey Keitel.The...
(Philip Glenister
Philip Glenister
Philip Haywood Glenister is an English actor, known for his role as DCI Gene Hunt in British television series Life On Mars and its sequel Ashes To Ashes.-Television and films:...
). During the two series, Tyler frequently clashes with Hunt regarding their different policing methods. Tyler, being a 21st century detective is forensically aware and procedurally correct, whereas Hunt values violence, corruption and gut instinct in order to catch criminals. However, eventually the two develop a love-hate relationship
Love-hate relationship
A love–hate relationship is an interpersonal relationship involving simultaneous or alternating emotions of love and hate. This relationship does not have to be of a romantic nature, and may be instead of a sibling one...
and respect each others input.
Throughout the series, Tyler frequently hears and sees things from his life in 2006. While in 1973, Tyler often sees moving images from the present day on his television, hears loved ones and medical staff talk about him and to him through phones and portable radios, along with being stalked by Test Card Girl (Rafaella Hutchinson & Harriet Rogers) and experiencing recurring hallucinations.
Eventually, Tyler becomes good friends with Annie Cartwright
Annie Cartwright
WPC/DC Annie Cartwright is a fictional character in BBC One's science fiction/police procedural drama, Life on Mars. The character is portrayed by Liz White...
(Liz White) and is the only character in the programme that he reveals his situation to. Tyler also becomes friends with Chris Skelton
Chris Skelton
PC/DC Christopher "Chris" Skelton is a fictional character in BBC One's science fiction/police procedural drama, Life on Mars and its spin-off Ashes to Ashes.- Life on Mars :...
(Marshall Lancaster
Marshall Lancaster
Marshall Lancaster is a British actor. He has appeared in many television dramas, including Coronation Street, Holby City, The Lakes and Family Affairs, but is probably best known for playing DC Chris Skelton in the BBC time-travel police dramas, Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes.Lancaster is a...
) who attempts to learn from Tyler's modern policing methods, and is introduced to tape-recording interviews by Tyler, something which was not standard procedure in the 1970s. However, Tyler often clashes with Ray Carling
Ray Carling
DC/DS/DI Raymond Milton "Ray" Carling is a fictional character in BBC One's science fiction/police procedural drama, Life on Mars and its spin-off Ashes to Ashes.-Life on Mars:...
(Dean Andrews
Dean Andrews
Dean Andrews is a British actor.He is most famous for his role as DS Ray Carling in the BBC Television drama Life on Mars...
), as he views Tyler as stopping him from being promoted to Detective Inspector.
While in 1973, Tyler finds himself investigating many crimes with the CID team from serial killers
Series 1: Episode 1 (Life on Mars)
The first episode of the first series of the British time travel police procedural television series, Life on Mars, was first broadcast on 9 January 2006. The episode, known erroneously as "The Crash", was produced by Kudos Film & Television for BBC One....
, armed robberies
Series 1: Episode 2 (Life on Mars)
The second episode of the first series of the British time travel police procedural television series, Life on Mars, was first broadcast on 16 January 2006. It was produced by Kudos Film & Television for BBC One.-Synopsis:...
, murders
Series 1: Episode 5 (Life on Mars)
The fifth episode of the first series of the British time travel police procedural television series, Life on Mars, was first broadcast on 6 February 2006...
, a hostage situation
Series 1: Episode 6 (Life on Mars)
The sixth episode of the first series of the British time travel police procedural television series, Life on Mars, was first broadcast on 13 February 2006. It was produced by Kudos Film & Television for BBC One.-Synopsis:...
and a suspicious death in police custody
Series 1: Episode 7 (Life on Mars)
The seventh episode of the first series of the British time travel police procedural television series, Life on Mars, was first broadcast on 20 February 2006. It was produced by Kudos Film & Television for BBC One.-Synopsis:...
.
During episode four
Series 1: Episode 4 (Life on Mars)
The fourth episode of the first series of the British time travel police procedural television series, Life on Mars, was first broadcast on 30 January 2006. It was produced by Kudos Film & Television for BBC One.-Synopsis:...
and episode eight
Series 1: Episode 8 (Life on Mars)
The eighth, and final, episode of the first series of the British time travel police procedural television series, Life on Mars, was first broadcast on 27 February 2006...
, Tyler meets his mother Ruth (Joanne Froggatt
Joanne Froggatt
- Early life, education and early career :Born and raised in the village of Littlebeck, Froggatt left her family home at the age of 13 to attend the Redroofs Theatre School in Maidenhead, Berkshire. In 1996, she made her TV début in the long-running ITV drama, The Bill, and shortly afterwards...
) and his father, Vic (Lee Ingleby
Lee Ingleby
Lee Ingleby is a British film, television, and stage actor.He is perhaps best known for his roles as Detective Sergeant John Bacchus in the BBC Drama George Gently and as Stan Shunpike in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban...
). Despite thinking that helping them and persuading his father to stay with his mother may enable him to return to 2006, this plan is revealed to be unsuccessful.
Finale
During the series finaleSeries 2: Episode 8 (Life on Mars)
The eighth episode of the second series, and overall finale of the British time travel police procedural television series, Life on Mars, was first broadcast on 10 April 2007...
, Acting DCI Frank Morgan (Ralph Brown
Ralph Brown
Ralph William John Brown is an English actor and writer, known for playing Danny the drug dealer in Withnail and I, the security guard Aaron in Alien 3, DJ Bob Silver in The Boat That Rocked, and the pilot Ric Olié in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace...
) is introduced as a new character to temporarily oversee CID while Gene Hunt is wrongly suspected of murder. Tyler is convinced that Morgan is his surgeon attempting to revive him from his coma in 2006. However, Morgan reveals that Tyler is actually DCI Sam Williams of C-Division at Hyde and a part of M.A.R.S. (Metropolitan Accountability and Reconciliation Strategy) a taskforce to deal with corruption in the police force. He also reveals that "Williams" was sent undercover with a fake identity as DI Sam Tyler to infiltrate Hunt's team, but developed severe concussion and amnesia after a bad car accident on the way. After finding evidence to substantiate Morgan's claims, a distraught Tyler begins to doubt if he is actually from the future.
Morgan eventually convinces Tyler that exposing Gene Hunt and his CID team while on an undercover operation to catch a violent armed robber, Leslie Johns (Sean Gilder
Sean Gilder
Sean Brian Gilder is an English stage, film and screen actor, he is also a playwright.Gilder was born in Brampton, Cumbria, England. He is best-known for his portrayal of Paddy Maguire on Shameless from 2005 to 2010, and as Styles on Hornblower...
), will enable him to return to 2006. While the undercover operation is in progress on the train that Leslie Johns and his team is attempting to rob, Chris, Gene, Ray and Annie all come under fire and are caught out in the open. Tyler rushes to Frank Morgan who is observing the situation from inside the train tunnel and asks for his promised armed assistance. Morgan refuses and tells Tyler that they are to let Hunt and the rest of CID die in the fire-fight, as it is the perfect way to expose Hunt. After talking to Morgan, Tyler wakes up in 2006.
Upon finally waking up and recovering in 2006, he becomes a shell of his former self, and remains emotionally scarred and haunted by the promise he made to Annie in 1973, to return and save her from the fire-fight on the train. After alienating his cold, unsympathetic colleagues and confiding to his elderly mother, he commits suicide by joyfully taking a running jump off the police station roof.
Tyler then re-appears in the railway tunnel in 1973 and promptly kills Leslie Johns, saving the team's lives as he promised. After being thanked by the team and kissing Annie, Tyler receives a message on Gene's car radio from 2006 that he is "slipping away", implying that he has chosen to stay in 1973. This time however, Tyler finds the strength to turn the radio off and happily rides off into the sunset with Hunt and the rest of the team.
Series creators Ashley Pharoah
Ashley Pharoah
Ashley Pharoah is a British Television writer, co-creator of the successful drama series Life on Mars, which began on BBC One in 2006....
and Matthew Graham
Matthew Graham
Matthew Graham is a British television writer, and the co-creator of the BBC/Kudos Film and Television science fiction series Life on Mars, which debuted in 2006 on BBC One and has received international critical acclaim....
have confirmed that they intended Sam's jump to be suicide. In an interview with the Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
The Manchester Evening News is a regional daily newspaper covering Greater Manchester in the United Kingdom. It is published every day except Sunday and is owned by Trinity Mirror plc following its sale by Guardian Media Group in early 2010. It has an average daily circulation of 90,973 copies...
, Graham states that Sam is now in the afterlife, where time lasts an eternity compared to the few seconds of the suicide jump: "The truth is, when I wrote it, what I was trying to say is that he's died, and that for however long that last second of life is going to be, it will stretch out for an age, as an eternity for him. And so when he drives off in that car, he's really driving off into the afterlife."
Life after 1973
During Life on Mars spin-off, Ashes to AshesAshes to Ashes (TV series)
Ashes to Ashes is a British science fiction and police procedural drama television series, serving as the sequel to Life on Mars.The series began airing on BBC One in February 2008. A second series began broadcasting in April 2009...
set in 1981, it is revealed that Sam Tyler lived for a further seven years. Tyler later married Annie Cartwright and died in 1980 after unintentionally driving his car into a river while in pursuit of a suspect, from which his body was never recovered. Jackie Queen described Sam and Annie as the "happiest couple" she had ever seen and that Tyler was the "most loved man she had ever met."
During the first episode of series three of Ashes to Ashes, the nature of his death is raised when Alex Drake
Alex Drake
DI Alexandra "Alex" Drake is a fictional character in BBC One's science fiction/police procedural drama, Ashes to Ashes. The character is portrayed by Keeley Hawes and as a child by Lucy Cole.-Character history:...
discovers a witness statement implied to have been written by Gene Hunt with various parts blacked out, accompanied by Alex seeing visions of a man with injuries to the left side of his face dressed in police tunic and greatcoat. In the second episode, DCI Jim Keats, an officer from the Discipline and Complaints department, intent on removing Gene Hunt, states he believes Gene killed Sam Tyler. In the fifth episode, Gene destroys Tyler's clothes (which Alex had requested from Manchester) and the censored file in order to prevent her from learning the truth about his death. In the following episode, a suspect with very different physical appearance and a known fantasist tries to convince Alex that he is Sam Tyler after undergoing extensive plastic surgery, and that he is from the future, quoting Sam's usual speech in the Life on Mars introductions, claiming that nobody else is real- although he still seems to be pleased when he, Gene and Alex are in the same room, calling them the 'Three Musketeers'- and avoiding Alex's attempts to test him for future knowledge by claiming that such details are forgotten after too long in the past (Although everyone concerned only humours him to get information about the current prison riot). Gene tells Alex that he helped Sam fake his own death, meaning Sam was still alive but had disappeared into thin air.
During the penultimate episode of series three, after being asked by Alex Drake if Hunt murdered Tyler, Hunt explains how after a few weeks of Tyler acting "weird" he helped him fake his own death as Tyler "had to go". In the finale, it is revealed that some years later, Sam Tyler had taken Gene's offer of going "to the pub" - accepting his death in the real world, and moving on from his life in the past.
Personality and appearance
Tyler is displayed to be a professional and procedurally correct officer who dislikes corruption and brutality. An example of this is found in episode fourSeries 1: Episode 4 (Life on Mars)
The fourth episode of the first series of the British time travel police procedural television series, Life on Mars, was first broadcast on 30 January 2006. It was produced by Kudos Film & Television for BBC One.-Synopsis:...
when, after discovering that the entire CID are being bribed to help a local crime boss, he tries to end the corrupt arrangement.
For the majority of his time in 1973, Tyler wears a black leather jacket
Leather jacket
A leather jacket is a type of clothing—a jacket-length coat—usually worn on top of other apparel, and made from the tanned hide of various animals. The leather material is typically dyed black, or various shades of brown, but a wide range of colors is possible...
with jeans
Jeans
Jeans are trousers made from denim. Some of the earliest American blue jeans were made by Jacob Davis, Calvin Rogers, and Levi Strauss in 1873. Starting in the 1950s, jeans, originally designed for cowboys, became popular among teenagers. Historic brands include Levi's, Lee, and Wrangler...
or plain trousers and typical shoes of the day, with his collar spread out and no tie, unlike the rest of Hunt's CID. During his brief showing in 2006, he wears a formal dark navy suit with a tie. Tyler also wears a St. Christopher pendant, reflecting his time traveller status as St. Christopher is the patron saint of travellers.
Relationships
Tyler's main relationship with another character in the show is with Annie Cartwright, who throughout the two series is the only character who he fully enlightens to his situation.Tyler and Chris Skelton eventually become friends, with Chris seeing him as a role model and attempts to learn from his modern policing techniques, such as tape-recording interviews and forensic awareness. However, Chris finds himself "torn between" Tyler's methods and Hunt's. Chris later states that he's not sure if they were friends, Sam was "more of a mentor, really".
Throughout the two series, Ray Carling and Tyler often clash. According to the series website, this is because Ray was seen as the "golden boy" and had applied for promotion before Tyler arrived as the new Detective Inspector. Carling frequently insults Tyler and disobeys his orders, and has an extreme loyalty to Hunt which is often a source of conflict. According to the series website, they also clash because Carling is a similar character to Hunt.
Despite the love hate relationship and constant disagreements Tyler and Hunt suffer, they eventually become to respect each others methods, with Hunt respecting Tyler due to his tireless and methodical investigation techniques and, while not agreeing with all his methods, Tyler respecting Hunt's ability to get results. The creators have stated that his is because Hunt "sees a lot of Tyler" in himself. They both appear to trust each other as in the seventh episode
Series 2: Episode 7 (Life on Mars)
The seventh episode of the second series of the British time travel police procedural television series, Life on Mars, was first broadcast on 3 April 2007. It was produced by Kudos Film & Television for BBC One.-Synopsis:...
of the second series, Hunt calls Tyler first after he wakes up to appear to have killed a man while Tyler appears to be the only officer who believes that Hunt is innocent and eventually he is proved right.
During the first episode
Series 1: Episode 1 (Ashes to Ashes)
Episode 1 is the first episode of series 1 of the British science fiction/police procedural drama television series, which is the sequel to Life on Mars. It began broadcasting on BBC One on 7 February 2008.-Synopsis:...
of Ashes to Ashes, Carling's attitude towards Tyler appeared to have softened. Carling acknowledged Tyler's bravery in saving his colleagues during the last episode of Life on Mars, but he still criticises his tendency to disobey Hunt.
Chris Skelton operates the receiver for a wireless bug, and boasts that he had been taught about such things by "The great Sam Tyler himself."
Among the many disparaging nicknames that Hunt bestows upon him during the course of the series, Tyler earns at least one positive nickname: the "Boy Wonder".