Ashes To Ashes - Episode 8

“I’m happy, hope you’re happy too”. Er, not really – series 1 of Ashes to Ashes is at an end! Never fear though – it is back next year! This series has improved with every episode and anyone still comparing it with Life on Mars, should be slapped around by Gene Hunt!

It’s a different show, with a different set up. I doubt that the solution to Alex’s predicament (if there is one!) will be same as Sam Tyler’s in Life on Mars and I feel Ashes to Ashes has more mileage in it, as the program isn’t just concentrated on one character.

In this episode, we finally find out the truth about how Alex’s parents died. Meanwhile the station is under inspection from Lord Scarman (an actual real-life person, played by Geoffrey Palmer), who has powers to close the station down. So Gene is obviously on tenderhooks and is determined that nothing and no-one will let the station down.

With the day of her parents death looming, Alex fakes a phone call from an informant and her and Ray investigate the ‘bomb threat’. They stake out a gay pride march and Alex destroys a car, which she believes the Price’s will die in, with a pink tank! Or something that was done up like a tank anyway! As they make their getaway, poor Ray breaks his nose - thanks to Alex’s driving!

The cells, back at the station, aren’t populated enough, so Chris is thrown in for ‘indecently exposing himself on a bus’! He would be joined later by some of the gay pride marchers and after a ‘YMCA’ later - you can imagine what happened next!

Alex continues her campaign and after going to prison to see Layton, who shot her in 2008 and knows about the bombing, she gets nowhere. Later she planted drugs on the Price’s in order to prevent them from getting in the car the next day. Meanwhile Lord Scarman, who knows the Price’s and is furious that they’ve been nicked, asks to sample ‘life in the cells’ – alongside poor Chris!

Alex’s efforts prove to be pointless, after another emotional chat with her mother (not again!), the Price’s are released and they borrow Evan’s car for their trip. Alex receives a phone call from Layton, who has just been released and her and Gene desperately try to reach the Price’s. We then see the events from Alex’s flashbacks, young Alex loses her balloon and gets out of the car just as her Dad, or as we learn, The Clown of Death, is behind it all and the car blows up.

Apparently, he found out about his wife’s affair with Evan and went mad. He wanted his family ‘to be together forever’ and got explosives expert, Layton, out of jail to help him. It was Evan who Layton was blackmailing in 2008, as Alex didn’t know the truth behind her parents death. And it was Gene who took Alex’s hand and took her away after the car blew up – not Evan. Does this mean Gene is real? Who knows!

A marvellous end to the series, which improved episode by episode. Even though I love Life on Mars, I honestly think Ashes to Ashes is more consistent and the storyline will become more interesting next year, hopefully! While Life on Mars was a brand-new concept, the writers have had time to plan Ashes to Ashes and improve upon the world in which its set. The moments of horror in this series have been done brilliantly and the humour has counterbalanced that well. The moment in which Tim Price was revealed to be ‘The Clown’ was totally unexpected and quite scary!

9.5/10

Here’s looking forward to next year, where hopefully we will learn more about Alex and Shaz will be given a bigger role!

Ashes To Ashes - Episode 7

Alex shows her true colours this week and stabs Gene in the back after he does what he does best – beating people up! With Caroline Price and Evan waiting in the wings, Alex isn’t short of company.

Alex’s visions of the ‘Clown of Death’ continue and he tells her that someone will die and images of her colleagues are shown dead. She quickly realises she must do anything to prevent this.

After charity fundraiser, Gil Hollis (Matthew McFadyen, Keeley Hawes real-life husband) is shot and robbed of his charity money, an appeal is launched on television program, ‘Police 5’. Fat versions of Gene and Ray appear, whilst someone who looks nothing like Chris is left pounding behind them! It’s all quite funny, except for ‘real life’ Gene, Ray and Chris! Gene even appears on Police 5 with an appeal – “Don’t have nightmares, no, do have nightmares these are scum and they’re still at large and we need to nail these bastards!”

Meanwhile Gil is found out to have an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, so he seems to be very strange, doing a number or odd things and Gene loses his patience. He pays a visit to some ‘Ska Boys’, who hang around near the crime scene. But when the lads seem reluctant to give information, the real Gene Hunt is back as a mass brawl breaks out - fantastic! Gene carries on the violence back at the station, much to Alex’s horror. Gene gets his information but Alex reports him and ‘The Manc Lion’ is took off the case and put on ‘leave’. The Price’s take over Hollis’s case.

With Alex being shunned by everyone, Gene tips off the team about an item which Hollis put back on his car window, after he had been shot. They head down to the area and find the gun in a portaloo, with Chris doing the honours! Meanwhile Gene is eating a ‘Steak and Chips Pizza’ in Luigi’s, when the team burst in and tell him of the news.

But then Luigi’s becomes under siege, as Hollis has turned up, shooting at the restaurant. After Alex tries to calm him down, he runs off but Shaz follows him. After he is caught, he accidently stabs her and despite Alex’s best efforts. It seems the pretty WPC is dead. Chris, her boyfriend, is upset and Gene allows him and Ray to give Hollis a kicking, much to the horror of Sgt. Vic. Meanwhile Alex is determined not to let the ‘Clown of Death’ win and revives poor Shaz.

It was a breathtaking episode from start to finish. What I like about Ashes to Ashes, is its ability to go from a comic moment to an almost horror like, upsetting moment in seconds. Whilst the fat Ray, with jewellery and Gene’s television appearance was hilarious, the stabbing of Shaz almost brought a tear to the eye. I say almost, I’ll leave all that crying to nancy boys and the girls!

Credit to Matthew McFadyen for such a convincing role as the OCD-affected Hollis. I thought he was superb, considering the role he had to play and the fact that he had to act opposite his wife! But it all won’t be possible without the writing. Which is makes me wonder – Did Matthew Graham really write the Doctor Who episode, Fear Her?!

9/10

Next Week – We are coming to end of Ashes to Ashes but with so many questions to be answered, will everyone make it out alive?

Ashes To Ashes - Episode 6

Phil Davis guest stars in this week’s Ashes to Ashes as aging bank robber Chas Cale, who met Gene Hunt 10 years previously, in Manchester. He got away then and now he has retried to run a restaurant in London with his wife. Gene doesn’t believe him, as he is investigating a local post office, which was robbed with all the hallmarks of a Chas Cale job.

Meanwhile Alex is feeling unwell. Her visions of ‘The Clown of Death’ don’t help much and she believes she is going to die. So her goodbye to Caroline Price seemed very uncomfortable, well to me anyway!

It turns out that Cale is too ill to do any kind of robbery, so the team are back at square one as Gene and Alex continue their slanging matches. Alex even steals Gene’s car to steal Cale’s rubbish bags for evidence! In fact Gene’s feeling ‘past it’ and goes to Luigi’s for a ‘quiet drink’, well nothing’s ever quiet in Luigi’s! The owner constantly badgers Gene to go upstairs and see Alex because ‘it’s not right that there’re both alone’. Gene eventually does and as they are having a few drinks, Chris and Ray, who are ‘undercover’ in a pub, contact Gene to tell him they may have nicked one of the bikers who robbed the post office.

We learn that the biker is looking after his nephew and when his alibi checks out, the team are nowhere again. That is until the biker turns up dead and the murder is witnessed by the young lad.

We find out that it was indeed Chas Cale who did the robbery along with the murdered man but it was his wife that was pulling the strings and she hired an hit man. Still, it looks bleak for Alex, as she is taken, tied up and shoved in a freezer, for the hit man to come and collect. But it’s Gene who comes to the rescue and after the most epic scene of ‘shooting a glass door’ I have ever seen, he gets Alex out of freezer and revives her!

It was another very good episode but I always feel uncomfortable watching the scenes between Alex and her mother. I don’t know if they are designed to be like that and it’s no criticism of the actors but I just squirm when Alex cries in front of her! It also seems the Gene-Alex love thing is on, after Gene drew a naughty picture of him, ahem, ‘doing’ Alex! She didn’t see it but Ray, Chris and Shaz did! Whoops!

8/10

Next Week – Gene finally does us a favour and kicks smarmy Evan’s head in!

Ashes To Ashes - Episode 5

Love, guns and murder are on the menu in this week's Ashes to Ashes and Ray finds a new talent – chatting up men! Local bastard, Simon Neary, is wanted for a number of crimes, including drug dealing and pimping. But this isn’t any run-of-the-mill gangster – he happens to like the male form, much to the boys disgust!

Alex tries to befriend Simon’s ‘boyfriend’, Marcus (Russell Tovey, aka Alonso Frame in Doctor Who – Voyage of the Damned) to get information on him. Meanwhile Gene ruffs up one of his snouts, who works for Neary and who has been passing on information about a deal involving guns. It isn’t long until he turns up dead and Gene gets angry and threatens Neary.

Alex believes that if she can stop the guns from getting in, then there would be no ‘gang warfare’ in the future, thus stopping her from getting shot in 2008. Personally I thought this was a little silly of her, she wouldn’t be able to stop all the guns from getting in!

As Alex and Gene bicker, they go ‘undercover’ at a gay club with Alex accompanying Marcus. Neary doesn’t give too much away, apart from the impression he isn’t very nice and gets jealous quite easily! So it’s up to Ray, in the most hilarious scene yet, who chats up Neary! Again, the team hardly get anywhere as the gangster says something that Raymondo doesn’t like and he causes a scene and thumps a few clubbers!

It isn’t long until Alex persuades Marcus what kind of man his boyfriend is and after seeing him with Ray, he agrees to go undercover and ‘trap’ him. A ride to a disused warehouse later, where Neary has already shot the gun dealer and as he and Marcus have sex (which Gene and Alex are listening to on the radio via Marcus’s wire), he blurts out that he killed the snout. Things get more frantic and there’s a gunshot but it’s Neary who’s left in a critical condition.

Alex takes Marcus home to parents he hasn’t seen for 10 years. Presumably, the police haven’t reported that it was Marcus who shot Neary! It’s a rather touching moment, as it seems Marcus as the onset of an STD, which were rife during the 1980’s.

The episode runs at a decent pace with the usual funny moments in it! It does leave you wanting more but I would say that this episode is one of the more straight forward ones in the series, which means there is a lot more to come!

8.5/10

Next Week: Gene finally leaves the wine bar and goes drinking in a proper pub!

Ashes To Ashes - Episode 4

It’s all spooky-spooky doo this week in Ashes to Ashes! There’s no sign of ghosts but spies a plenty, as the team get involved in a goverment cover up, after a man was murdered.

The episode also delves more into the Price’s and we learn that the murdered man, Martin Kennedy, was blackmailing Caroline Price after Alex’s mother was involved in an affair with dodgy Evan - and Kennedy had the photos to prove it.

But as the team pull in a group of socialists, that Kennedy had recently joined, they get nowhere. It’s only when they crack a code, hidden in Kennedy’s diary, that they get somewhere. They try and retrieve a file, which may prove the socialist group’s suspicions correct, that the government are testing nuclear weapons at Kennedy’s workplace, a government facility, and murdered Kennedy because he had plans to steal it.

Gene and Alex end up locked in an air=tight vault and things look very intimate, or is it just the heat inside the vault? Chris and Ray, fresh from ‘persuading’ the socialist leader to tell them what really happened in her dealings with Kennedy, come to the rescue.

It’s Ray and Chris that steal the show, again! Their brilliant ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine was really funny as was their attempt at ‘spying’ on Gene. Another priceless few moments was Chris taking on board advice from a feminist and Ray’s reaction to the Caroline Price photos! This is precisely what makes Ashes to Ashes as strong as it is. The quality of the writing and the supporting cast is just superb, some shows just concentrate on the main characters and that is why most end up short of quality.

8/10

Next Week: The boys end up in a gay club. Aren’t all clubs in London like that anyway?

Ashes To Ashes - Episode 3

Ashes To Ashes just keeps on improving! The show has now surely got its own identity and is moving forward in the right direction, after Life on Mars.

This week, after busting a drugs ring (who stored cocaine in garden gnomes!), Gene and Alex come to blows after he doesn’t believe that ‘a lady of the night’ was raped. I say come to blows, Alex did give him a decent jab on the jaw! But for me, it’s Ray that steals the show. In Life On Mars, he was portrayed as a kind of ‘bad guy’ figure, who really disliked Sam Tyler. I didn’t like the character much but so far in Ashes To Ashes, he’s been great! He’s always got the funny quip and his on-screen ‘partnership’ with Chris is brilliant! In this episode, he shows his softer side when he befriends a rape victim, who is reluctant to tell the police what happened.

Alex gets to meet the younger version of Evan White, who is her Godfather and the person who she left her daughter, Molly, with in 2008. Personally, I think there’s something sneaky about him! Alex also gets to (drunkenly) drop her knickers again after Gene turns her down and she gets with some wine-drinking ponce!

Meanwhile, Gene believes the ‘rape’ is connected to that of a murder, which took place a while previously. After the description given to them by the ‘victim’ they stake out a party, which takes place on a boat. The team get to enjoy themselves, as the party is fancy dress! One of the staff is arrested but lack of evidence and Evan White, scupper them but it’s not long until the culprit takes another prostitute hostage and is caught. We also find out that the ‘victim’ was helping the girl who Ray befriended, as she was too scared to come forward.

Unfortunately, after the hostage makes herself disappear, it seems unlikely that a court will believe the testimony of Ray’s new friend. But he was soon nicked for storing the drugs from earlier, thanks to Ray-mondo!

It was another very good episode, we are starting to learn more about Alex and credit to the writers for resisting the temptation to make her some kind of ‘likeable hero’, just for the sake of it. It gives her a lot more depth if she has a lot of problems to work through and would be just be very boring if she was always right! The same goes with Gene, I suppose!

8.5/10

Next Week: Ray gets to use his ‘James Bond costume’ again, as he goes undercover – as a waiter!