More TV

Sorry but it's been a busy week this week. Still is! So here’s some quick TV notes:

Ashes To Ashes: Season 2 Episode 1

A better start to this than series one. One of the things missing from AtA that Life of Mars had was a sense of mystery and madness. Sam Tyler (and the viewers) didn't know whether he had gone back in time, whether he was hallucinating, whether his memories of the future were hallucinations, whether he was in the afterlife, or something else. That, together with his love of Annie and the growing companionship with Gene, was slowly causing Sam to doubt himself and head a little towards madness.

Conversely, Alex Drake is just a little too sure of herself. She's pretty certain she's just dreaming all this; it's a death's-door fantasy based on her work on the Sam Tyler case.

With the introduction of the strange man who knows about things in the 90s and Diana's death, a whiff of mystery has been added. And Alex now doubts what's going on. Much, much better!

It's still not as weirdly wonderful and surreal as Life On Mars was, and will never obtain that sense of mystery, but it is definitely getting better.

Smallville: Infamous (s8 ep15)

Still reasonably good. This week's episode was - on the one hand - a bit of a cheat with the whole travelling back in time to the start and undoing the whole episode. I didn't know the Legion flight ring could do that. Still we saw a bit more of Doomsday again. And it was interesting to see how Lois would react to Clark's revelation.

Heroes:  Turn And Face The Strange (v4 ep9)

Okay and perhaps getting better. The Petrelli family are all back together and digging up graves. But that means we get a flashback to the early days of the Heroes universe next week, which I always like. The whole shapeshifting power could get somewhat complicated, as we'll never be certain who's who. And big Matt Parkman has now met little Matt Parkman. Little Matt was good fun but I think I'm getting bored of him now. Again, things are just plodding along. Hopefully, it'll improve.

Primeval: Episode 16

They killed Nick Cutter! The main character! Wow. Sure, I suppose he could come back via some time-travel shenanigans but still. That's one heck of a change. This programme keeps improving and is a decent sci-fi/fantasy show for ITV - certainly better than Demons!