Ashes to Ashes: Season 2 Episode 8

It seems that a few TV shows I watch are coming to the end of their current season this week, Ashes to Ashes being one of them (Smallville and Primeval are the other ones that come to mind). And this final episode of Season 2 goes out with a bang - followed by a fade to white and lots of shouts of "Bolly!".

Season 2 was a better series of 8 episodes than the first season, although still not quite as good as Life on Mars. Maybe this is because AtA is retreading a lot of familiar ground that LoM first explored? Or maybe it's because LoM was set in and around Manchester (my "home city" I guess) rather than AtA's London? Still, it is improving - perhaps due to additional little twists and weird events (such as the inclusion of Martin Summers, who appears to be another coma victim from the future) - which is unusual but very welcome.

In this episode we get Gene hosting Jackanory (hilarious!), Alex trying to stop Summers, Gene losing his trust in Alex, Alex discovering Summers is in the room next to hers in the future, Ray chomping on a phallic-like sausage (tee hee!), and the partial redemption of Chris after it was revealed he was a traitor to the team in last week’s episode.

Highlights were Gene's "You've been Quattroed" and a wedding-dress attired Shaz blasting away saving Chris. Of course, the biggest shock was Alex getting shot by Gene, the gradual fade and then waking up in 2009. But as Gene starts shouting to her from the monitors, we're left wondering is this the real 2009 or just another coma-induced dream? Has Alex gone mad?

Of course, we now know they'll be a third season of AtA, so somehow they'll have to pick this up and (probably) send Alex back to the 1980s. The currently favoured way-ahead is that Alex will "wake up" from the dream-2009 and find herself in a hospital back in the '80s. But who knows? There are dozens of theories out there about where Alex is, what it's all about and what’s going to happen.

And it's all this speculation and theorizing that, for me, is so fascinating. Sure, seeing a pastiche of an 80s cop show and looking at it through Alex's modern-day eyes can be quite entertaining but it can only take us so far (and we've currently had 4 seasons of this between LoM and AtA). It's the uncertainty of what's actually happening to Alex - whether Gene's World is a shared reality for cops in comas, just something made up by Alex's mind or something more - that keeps this interesting. It also helps a lot that the main characters, Gene, Alex, Ray and Chris, are so well realised and engaging.

A great ending to a good season. I can't wait for the third, and final, season next year!

 

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!