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ASHES TO ASHES |
Alex Drake - Keeley Hawes Gene Hunt - Philip Glenister Ray Carling - Dean Andrews Chris Skelton - Marshall Lancaster Sharon 'Shaz' Granger - Montserrat Lombard 
OTHER ASHES TO ASHES SERIES Series 2 PARENT SERIES Life on Mars Series 1 Life on Mars Series 2 OTHER TIME TRAVEL SHOWS Doctor Who Journeyman Goodnight Sweetheart Timecop Daybreak 
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Episode 1 - first transmitted 7th February 2008Alex Drake is a top forensic scientist for the Metropolitan Police. On her daughter's birthday she is called to deal with a man holding a female hostage and demanding to speak only to her. As a result of this, Alex is shot and wakes up to find herself in 1981, surrounded by all the characters that inhabited the delusions of Sam Tyler, a case that Alex has been working on for a book. Gene Hunt and his team are old school cops on the verge of being phased out, but in the meantime they are on the trail of a giant drug dealing network, a network that Alex believes to be run by the man who shot her in the present. Perhaps by bringing him to justice she will get the psychic push that she needs to get back to her daughter. LIFE ON MARS was a landmark TV show that mixed old fashioned police stories with a science fiction edge that was stolen from the movie OPEN YOUR EYES (or VANILLA SKY if you're a Tom Cruise fan) to come up with two seasons of quality drama. That show created the character of Gene Hunt, ferociously played by Philip Glenister, a man never willing to use a kind word when a punch to the guts would do. Hunt is such a great character that it was inconceivable that he should die when LIFE ON MARS ran its course and so this spin off/sequel series has been created to bring the great man back. In order not to completely rehash LIFE ON MARS, Hunt's opposite number this time is the female psychological expert Alex Drake and the time period has been shifted from the north of the 70s to London of the 80s. Drake is excellently played by Keeley Hawes as an intelligent, but disoriented woman who knows that the scenario is playing out inside her head. That doesn't make it any less difficult for her to accept nor her situation any the less desperate, just less of a mystery. This opening episode revolves around her as she is the character that needs introducing (assuming you've seen the parent series) and hers is the problem. She carries the load of being on screen almost the whole time (and dressed as a prostitute) with ease, making her character both real and strong. When she is afraid, she shows it, but she also knows how to react under pressure. The star of the show, though, is Philip Glenister as Gene Hunt. His introduction is straight out of a spaghetti western with slow motion, Ennio Morricone style music and cowboy boots. It's a wonderful entrance, one of the greatest of all time and brought us to tears of laughter. The plot is pretty straightforward, but this is the opening show and is the setting up the plot arc that Alex is going to have to follow. The mystery to be solved is how is Layton, the man who shot her, involved with both her and her parents, both of whom were killed in this year. The surreal moments (the clown persona of David Bowie from the pop video to his song 'Ashes to Ashes' and George and Bungle from 'Rainbow') smack of trying just a little too hard to recapture the strangeness of LIFE ON MARS, but are easy to forgive. The dialogue is as cracking as ever and it looks like the 80s (the decade that taste forgot) is going to be a fun place to visit over the coming weeks. TopEpisode 2 - first transmitted 14th February 2008Alex Is trying to come to terms with the fantasy life that she is convinced she is now trapped in, but life isn't made any easier for her by Gene Hunt's determination to put an ink stamp on her behind, the whole team's obsession with the upcoming Royal Wedding between Prince Charles and Lady Di, a bomber who so far has only managed to kill a small dog and the arrival of her mother, a woman who proves to be far less pleasant than she even remembered. OK, the plot may centre around the search for a bomber, but that's just background here. What we really have is the story of how Alex continues to cope with her new existence, but mainly with how she has to cope with the image of her mother, a woman that she is desperate to love, but who consistently lives up to Alex's description of her as a rude bitch. There's a lot more play on the trappings of the time period with both the soundtrack (which will be an eighties lover's delight) and scenes taking place in a new romantics' club and a street party. Keeley Hawes is settling down into the role of DI Alex Drake and is becoming a bit more vulnerable and less spiky than last week, although she does seem to spend a distressing amount of time drunk. The sniping that goes on between her and her mother is very funny, but also reveals a lot about her character and motivations. The star again, though, is Philip Glenister as Gene Hunt, a gift of a role for any actor. This week he has some more cracking dialogue and also an interesting new way of playing pool. The show is his, but all of the lesser characters are allowed their moments. It's only the slightness of the story that disappoints. TopEpisode 3 - first transmitted 21st February 2008The unchanging nothing in question is the subject of rape and the sex trade. Following a massive drugs bust, the team follow up the story of a prostitute who claims to have been raped. Gene Hunt doesn't believe her story (she is a 'prossie' after all), but Drake is determined that she should be taken as seriously as any other woman. They track down a suspect, but when he proves to be in the clear a surprising change of events occurs. Rape is a dark crime and, whilst it does not do the subject anything like justice, this episode of ASHES TO ASHES shows it a little respect. Making the complainant a prostitute muddies the waters in terms of morality and making the suspect a religious fanatic is a less than subtle touch that could have been done without, but the treatment of the disturbed young girl who inevitably becomes core to the case, especially by Dean Andrews' Ray Carling, is sensitive and touching. Alex Drake still seems intent on getting drunk most of the time and has a one night stand with a passing yuppie after the sexual tension between her and Hunt gets ratcheted up a few notches, both characters showing a bit more vulnerability. Alex shows her strength when she finally gets around to punching Hunt in frustration, but he, of course, can't punch her back like he did to poor Sam Tyler in LIFE ON MARS. The drama isn't as strong as the parent programme, but the comedy element is coming along nicely. The sight of the team in full fancy dress costume mode is a very funny sequence indeed. The star again, though, is Philip Glenister as Gene Hunt, a gift of a role for any actor. This week he has some more cracking dialogue and also an interesting new way of playing pool. The show is his, but all of the lesser characters are allowed their moments. It's only the slightness of the story that disappoints. TopEpisode 4 - first transmitted 28th February 2008A man turns up dead with secret codes in his pocket and a diary with dates of a radical socialist women's movement. Gene Hunt has little time for conspiracy theories, but when the man turns out to have been a worker at a nuclear research centre, his body is quickly stolen and all the evidence is removed from the police station, even he has to credit that there might be some truth in it. Alex, meanwhile, has to come to terms with some unpleasant truths about the relationship between her mother and the godfather of her own daughter. ASHES TO ASHES is getting fully into its stride now and starting to establish itself as its own entity away from its parent programme. The introduction of the possible government conspiracy theory that is likely to lead to the identity of the murderers of Alex's parents is a major step forward in continuity, but it is the incidental pleasures that keep us coming back week after week. This week there is the arrest of the womens' socialist group and its effect on the men at the police station, most especially Chris that provides most of the entertainment as he tries to come to terms with the feminist concepts. The sexual tension between Gene and Alex continues its slow build, though the ending where they are both locked in an airtight vault and both strip off to deal with the increasing heat brings that to the fore in a big way. ASHES TO ASHES is growing in stature and confidence (as if it was ever short of that) with each passing week and is rapidly approaching 'unmissable' status. TopEpisode 5 - first transmitted 6th March 2008Gene Hunt is after Neary, one of the city's biggest villains, but he loses him twice and even finds his informant executed. Alex wants to use Neary's lover as a way of getting close to him, but as Neary is homosexual, Hunt wants nothing to do with the plan, but a major shipment of arms will ignite a turf war and the team's homophobia will have to wait. This being the eighties and this being Gene Hunt there is no end of political incorrectness being thrown around as the big hardmen of the team get nervous when faced with the prospect of dealing with the gay community. The sight of their discomfiture inside a gay club is one of the highlights of the episode. Alex, of course, being the woman and being of a more enlightened time, is less shocked and deals with the lover as a human rather than a 'poof', gaining his confidence enough to send him into a situation where he is very likely to get hurt, even killed. The moral and ethical consideration of the use of informants is pretty much glossed over in favour of a straight up detective story with very little about Alex's situation apart from the occasional appearance of her daughter and the spooky clown. Glenister's Gene Hunt continues to delight whilst Dean Andrews gets a moment to shine as he goes undercover in the gay bar, but the Alex Drake character continues to be not quite right - caring mother figure one minute and borderline drunk the next. That character remains the weak link in the show despite the work of Keeley Hawes to make her more likeable and accessible, but as she is the major character it is a bit of big flaw. TopEpisode 6 - first transmitted 13th March 2008A raid on a post office leads Gene directly to an old opponent, but his instincts appear to be wrong for once. Unsure of his ability to do his job properly as a result, he fails to notice that Alex is battling her own demons. A drop in body temperature leads her to believe that she is dying in the real world and that only solving the crime will keep her alive. This is easily the best of the episodes to date with all the disparate elements coming together into a coherent whole. It starts with a stark and surprising opening as Alex wakes from a falling dream to find the covers of her bed icing up. Her surmising that the drop in body temperature is due to her body dying in the real world is chilling, but it gets repeated a couple of times and so the impact is muted somewhat. It's nice to see Gene Hunt a bit less sure of himself as well. Not only is the age thing getting to him, but his attraction to Alex and her attraction to her mother's lover creates a subtle but real love triangle. His battle of wits with the enemy from the past is straightforward police drama, but it is a well-written police drama. The real strength in this episode, though, lies in the character of the little boy who witnesses the murder of his brother and unwittingly provides the vital clue that solves the case and saves Alex's life. His relationship with both Alex and Gene is full of emotions and pathos, but never sentimentality. It's the writing of character interactions like these that is making this show so much of a joy to watch. TopEpisode 7 - first transmitted 20th March 2008A popular charity worker is mugged of a large amount of donation money and the investigation is stonewalled so Gene Hunt goes on a television appeal show and makes a right mess of it. His increasingly violent attitude towards the victim, who suffers mental health problems gets him suspended, but Alex has bigger worries - the clown has promised her that he is going to take someone. ASHES TO ASHES is growing in stature in leaps and bounds. It is out from the shadow of its parent show and running on its own legs now. This is a quality drama show in its own right and this is one of the finest episodes yet. Apart from the investigation, which is straightforward enough (and the responsible parties never come as a surprise), the characters go through so much. Take Shaz, for example, a wpc with no real belief in her position in the force who is inspired to take on a fugitive with life-threatening results. Chris, her boyfriend is driven to a place darker than he could imagine and Gene Hunt is willing to walk right into that place with him. Hunt's doubts in himself and his place in the world of policing, or the world at large, is making him a darker and darker character as much in need of salvation as Alex herself. Poor Alex. Struggling to get control over her internal fantasy life and save one of her colleagues she is driven to betrayal and desperation. This is brilliantly exciting and dramatic stuff that comes to a climax that puts all the characters, and hence all the actors, through the wringer. It's wonderfully written and excellently acted. The problems with the Alex Drake character are increasingly ironed out and the show is finally firing on all cylinders. TopEpisode 8 - first transmitted 27th March 2008There are now just 24 hours to go before the car bomb that killed Alex's parents is due to go off and she is determined to stop it, sure that saving them will snap her out of her delusion and back to 2008. She trashes the car they were in, gets them arrested on trumped up drugs charges and makes sure that the bomber most likely responsible for making the bomb is securely in prison. Gene Hunt, however, has a more dangerous enemy to face - Lord Scarman. It's the series finale of ASHES TO ASHES and the show certainly goes out on a high. Alex's desperate attempts to avert Fate are by turns funny, scary and moving. The sight of her destroying a car by running over it in a pink tank (courtesy of a gay pride rally) is not something that you get to see every day. But the plot is really about tying up the first series' storyline. It's always been about Alex remembering, about her uncovering the secrets that lay half-submerged in her memory. She learns that her mother really loved her and would have been taking a sabbatical to be with her more had she not been killed. She learns the truth behind who killed her parents and why it happened and why she was never told the truth. She also learns the identities of the mysterious scary clown and the man who took her hand on that fateful day. If anything, the plot is all wrapped up a little too neatly. Real life isn't like that and there are always loose ends, but at least there is the question of Gene Hunt and just what he is to Alex. Hunt's story, which is about Lord Scarman's visit to the station (Scarman destined to be the author of the damning report that would usher in sweeping reforms of the police, making coppers like Hunt a thing of the past). Chris getting locked up in a cell to provide a suitable 'prisoner' for interview is then paired up with the gay rights protestors and then Scarman himself is a sequence of sheer delight, brilliantly staged comedy. But that's what ASHES TO ASHES has grown into. The drama is dramatic, the comedy very funny and the emotional content very moving. Shaz's return to the team feels like a real reason for celebration and the scene where Alex's mother confesses to her plans for her daughter ought to be gagworthy, but proves to be heartfelt. A second series is promised for next year. It can't come fast enough for us. Top |
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