Review: GHTTB: A2A 1.1 and 1.2

Ashes to Ashes, Series One, Episode One

Gene makes his entrance.

"It's a tough, screwed up world out there, but if you follow me you might just get through it."

Life On Mars was almost universally loved by the general public, and the public demand was still running high. The creators hadn't liked their two-year run, and so commissioned a sequel show with a definite three-year-run to compensate. Set in the Eighties and named after another Bowie song, Ashes to Ashes takes a very different look at the Bonanza, and such is obvious from this, the first episode.
     DI Alex Drake is the detective-psychologist responsible for covering the suicide of DCI Sam Tyler, whose apparent delusions about 1973 make him an interesting case. One day, while driving her young daughter Molly home from school, she is called out to investigate hostage-taker Arthur Layton, who has asked for her by name. Layton takes Molly hostage but then lets her go and disappears. After dropping Molly off with god-parent Evan, Drake is held hostage by Layton, who explains to someone on the phone that he knows how her parents died, back in 1981, and that he's going to tell her the truth. When Alex tries her psychoanalysis on him, Layton simply shoots her and she wakes up on  barge in 1981.
     Dressed as a prostitute and having woken up in the midst of what looks to be a sex/drugs party, Alex ends up being arrested as a witness. After some misunderstandings due to her dresssense, she eventually accidentally reveals that she is the team's new DI, brought in to replace Sam Tyler, who was finally "killed" in 1980, along with Annie, whose role in the team has been replaced by airheaded "Shaz". The team are trying to find the source of the drugs, the cheif suspect being David Markham (Adam James, who plays his stereotypical arsehole character).
     Alex is otherwise preoccupied; thinking she's in Life On Mars, she calls her fellow officers "constructs" and tries talking into phones. Convinced that Layton is the cause of her delusion, as Sam believed his father was the cause of his, she searches into his 1981 life to try and find a way to set him up. Everything turns up roses and Layton ends up being arrested in a quite frankly epic gun battle.
     Like the Test Card Girl in LoM, Alex is haunted by recurring spirits, in this case a ghostly Pierrot clown (like the one from the series' eponymous music video) and the explosion of the car containing Alex's parents. She also repeats her daughter's name a lot, which I know from experience will become very grating. (Much like PEH-TER!)

     In comparison to Mars' opener, A2A 1.1 conveys its ideas and setups with a lot more subtlty, as well as being simply more enjoyable - it's better written, is more colourful, and generally takes more time to laugh at its own sense of grandeur, like the 80s did. It doesn't have as much sheer mystery as the ambiguity of the beginning of the Bonanza, because we've seen (or believe we've seen) a case exactly like it with Sam. An exceedingly good start.

Ashes To Ashes, Series One, Episode Two

Oooh dear. After such a good start, Ashes returns with a rather unfocussed episode that has a good few ideas but ends up collapsing into a self-congratulating mess. In an ironic way, it suffers from faults that plague a lot of shows in the 80s itself.
     The central premise is simple enough; An Anarchist on the Isle of Dogs is planning to blow up several street parties celebrating the marriage of Charles and Diana. It's convaluted by: a dog blowing up; Alex chatting up and bonking a Thatcherite businessman, and Gene's intention to "stamp" Alex's behind with a Metropolitan Police stamp.
     Not a terrible hour by any rate, but not like the powerful and cohesive plotlines that the Bonanza usually throws at us.

Thanks.