Ashes To Ashes

At least they got Roy Skelton in to do the voices, so some attention was made to accuracy.

(Groan - I missed that bit of dialoge last night)
Smacks of the writers being asked to end Life On Mars in a rush, and to tie up all the looses ends in the last 15 mins of Series Two Episode 8. Then whilst writing Ashes To Ashes they go "actually I didn't really want Sam Tyler to commit suicide, so let's just rewrite history and ignore those last couple of scenes"

So, we have have to believe one of the two following...
A) He survived the fall off the building and his suicide attempt.
B) His recovery and subsquent suicide attempt was all in his imagination whilst in the coma, and we never actually saw him wake up.

All of which, streches the audiences attention span for following the storyline to the max, and any further bending of a plotline of a series that has ended is the fastrack to loosing your loyal fans for this series...

..but it was nice to see Zippy and George again wasn't it?

Not really - by the sounds of things Sam really committed suicide and died "in April last year". Alex's mind has conjured up a story of him dying in 1980 - which justifies her belief that the last few seconds of Sam's life lasted seven years in his fantasy world.

Thought it was a good opener. Always hard to do a spin-off keeping the LoM viewers happy whilst hopefully getting a few more newbies. Alex needed to recognise "the world" quickly so that it wasn't too similar to LoM and run with the story that she is a very intelligent, analytical woman.

Some good scenes and I couldn't work out at the end of she was looking directly at us or not

B*ll*cks. They knew right through production of the second series that they would be finishing at the end of that episode.


I'm sorry, but were you watching?

In the 'real world' we saw Sam's case file with a verdict of suicide.
In the 'fantasy' Alex is learning that the one second from death or one second from life can stretch out over a very long time.

That said, I do wonder if the writers are beginning to hint that the fantasy 70s/80s of Gene Hunt and co has more of a life of its own than we might have thought.

OK - I'll run the white flag of surrender up that particular arguement flagpole. Talking of second series, do we know if Kudos/BBC Wales have been given the nod to a second series of this?



That is they way I would have gone. Forget the dreamlike babble, and just give Hunt his own series and crimes to solve.

Exactly. I'd have thought the original puppets from 1981 are well worn, and have since become unusable. Those newer ones have been round for the last couple of years, Zippy himself has appeared in Harry Hill's TV Burp & Dead Ringers of recent years.

Not as of yet - but the ratings for episode 1 were good and unless they take an utter nosedive in the next 6/7 weeks I'd say it would be a safe bet

I think if they did that, they might lose part of the appeal, and it would just be another cop show. I would venture part of the appeal for LOM was the mix of sci-fi and a cop-drama-- if it ain't broke don't fix it I suppose.

I guess it's a bit picky to point that right-hand drive Audi Quattros weren't available until 1982 in the UK? Although Philip Glennister explains this by saying Hunt probably got a dodgy import-- after all we couldn't have Gene HUnt driving aroud in a Metro could we

It's important not to think about it as a sequel to Lom or even to compare it to it. They are two different shows. LoM seemed to take itself slightly more seriously the A2A. They are very different shows.

I happened to love A2A! Really enjoyed it. Although I always think I will prefer LoM.

I love the scene, towards the end of the episode were when everyone was looking for an answer they all turned and stared at Gene Hunt's office. He open the door, stands in the doorway and just simply say - " get tThe Quattro ready" - or something similar along those lines. Classic TV moment and just shows that this series may have a replacement for Sam but it IS about Gene and his sidekickc rathe than Alex!!!

Another classic moment was Gene et al (from LOM) on the speed boat on the Thames. So Mi-Vi!!!!!!!!

Fair point about Gene Hunt. I think they've drawn inspiration from Moonlighting and Mi Vi this time round.

"Fire up the Quattro!"

No more picky than my other half pointing out that the guns used by the cops of the time would have been Smith & Wesson revolvers, not the automatics we saw. (Hunt did have a revolver, but the wrong type, apparently)