Writer: Mick Ford
Director: Catherine Moorshead
Director: Catherine Moorshead
Cast: Philip Glenister (DCI Gene Hunt), Keeley Hawes (DI Alex Drake), Dean Andrews (DS Ray Carling), Marshall Lancaster (DC Chris Skelton), Montserrat Lombard (Shaz Granger), Amelia Bullmore (Caroline Price), Stephen Campbell Moore (Evan White), Phil Davis (Chas Cale), Anna Wilson-Jones (Joan Cale), Madhav Sharma (Mr Chatterjee), Joseph Long (Luigi), Geff Francis (Viv James), Sid Mitchell (Billy Dane), Asa Butterfield (Donny), Andrew Clover (The Clown), Grace Vance (Molly Drake) & Lucy Cole (Young Alex)
Alex and Gene try to find the robbers of a post office, with Alex believing she must solve the case to prevent her own death...It's another relatively simple case for Alex (Keeley Hawes) and Gene (Philip Glenister) to grapple with this week, with the real drama coming from Alex's firm belief she's moments away from brain-death in 2008, unless she can figure out the identities of two robbers...
The robbers in question stole cash and a Hare Chrishna figurine from a post office run by Mr Chatterjee (Madhav Sharma), and escaped together on a motorbike -- with Gene, Alex, Ray (Dean Andrews) and Chris (Marshall Lancaster) in hot pursuit in the Quattro. The thieves managed to get away, but Chatterjee's statement about the robber's body language (and line In Robert DeNiro impressions) reminds Gene of Chas Cale; a once-notorious bank robber who narrowly avoided jail 10 years ago in Manchester...
Having experienced a frightening dream, where her bedclothes became covered in a thin layering of ice, together with difficulty remembering specifics about who gave her a Rubik's Cube in the real '81, Alex believes she must be close to brain-death in the real world. Her only escape is to keep her mind active in this hallucinated '81, by solving the robbery and forcing her brain to make "connections" to fend off death.
Career criminal Chas Cale (Phil Davis) turns out to be a shadow of his former self; a restaurateur living with a medical condition that would cause a fatal epileptic fit if he has a rush of adrenaline. The "castrated" criminal appears to have the perfect alibi, and his wife Joan (Anna Wilson-Jones) helps convince Gene that her husband couldn't possibly have robbed Chatterjee's post office. Gene has to agree, but Alex isn't so sure...
Alex goes to see her mother Caroline (Amelia Bullmore) to say a final goodbye, in case she doesn't manage to survive. In a fine piece of acting from Hawes, Alex tries to tell Caroline she's really her daughter from the future, but is preventing from doing so by a doorbell ring. Caroline is apologetic, but she's in a desperate rush for work, suggesting they talk some other time.
The motif of a Rubik's Cube becomes prevalent throughout this episode, as Chris plays with one in CID, and one can be seen resting on Alex's dashboard after she leaves Caroline's. The episode plays with the idea of a mind-puzzle for Alex to solve to better effect than usual, as the sure sign of Alex's mental safety rests in her remembering who gave her a Rubik's Cube in the real 1981...
2008 policing tricks are introduced to the '81 characters, after Alex steals Gene's Quattro, using it to transports a boot-full of Chas' garbage bags back to CID – for everyone to search through for clues. Later, Ray and Chris are sent on a pub crawl to find the local robbers, where they mostly spend their time playing Space Invaders ("amazing graphics"), before noticing a young man called Billy Dane (Sid Mitchell) doing Robert DeNiro impressions to his friends...
Billy and his young son Donny (Asa Butterfield) are interviewed at CID by Gene and Alex, but Billy appears to have a strong alibi – having been present at the birth of his nephew. He's allowed to leave, and Alex bumps into Evan (Stephen Campbell Moore), who gives her his business card if she wants to meet later.
Later that night, Alex and Gene discover that Billy has been shot in the head after handing over cash to a mysterious figure. Donny saw the whole thing and is an invaluable witness, mentioning that Donny thanked the recipient of the cash by chasing "chas" instead of "cheers". Alex realizes who the recipient must have been, but after hearing it's Donny's eighth birthday, she takes him with Gene to Luigi's restaurant for an improvised party, giving him a Rubik's Cube as a present.
The next day, Alex offloads Donny onto Caroline (who seems incredibly tolerant of Alex and her crackpot ways), before heading to Chas' restaurant and confronting him over Billy's death. Before she can say much more, it's Chas' wife Joan who knocks Alex unconscious with a blow to the head, before tying her up and throwing her into their cold storage room.
At CID, Chris and Ray are amazed to find evidence linking Billy to Chas amongst the restaurant garbage, and Gene heads over to Chas' himself. Alex is woozy and minutes from death lying in the freezer, but Chas is also in trouble now – as the excitement of the situation has brought on an epileptic fit.
Pacing around outside Chas' restaurant, Gene notices Alex's police ID lying on the floor inside and shoots out the restaurant's glass window, before stepping inside – all in full glorious slow-motion, naturally. Gene quickly rescues Alex from inside the freezer and performs first aid, inches away from giving her mouth-to-mouth before she snaps awake, relieved she's managed to beat the brain-death hanging over her.
The denouement has Gene confirming that the Cale's restaurant was a money laundering scam (they ran it at a loss, with the hope of selling it on for clean, legit money). Donny arrives with Evan (having solved the Rubik's Cube), prodding a memory in Alex that it was Evan who gave her a Rubik's Cube in the real 1981. Later that night, Alex has the same nightmare that started the episode, but this time Gene Hunt is revealed as sharing her dream-bed...
Over The Hill was a decent enough episode, despite having a central plot that didn't quite hang together and was prone to a few strange decisions (why did Gene go to Chas' alone? Why did Alex go to Chas' alone?) and some strained ways to manipulate the plot around ("chas" being mistaken for "cheers", and the frailty of looking for a DeNiro impressionist in a pub!)
It wasn't the best example of an investigative police drama, but the way the plot worked parallel to Alex trying to keep herself alive worked well. The first episode suggested Ashes To Ashes would focus on crimes being mind-puzzled for Alex to solve, all helping to make her mind stronger in 2008, but it only really came together here – with the Rubik's Cube motif and the way an increasingly cold Alex eventually wound up stuck in cold storage to die.
The one thing I'm really struggling with is how much time Caroline Price seems to have for Alex. Every scene they have together involves Alex acting like a total lunatic, and they don't really seem to have much in common – beyond being professional women in male-dominated jobs. This episode even had Alex casually offloading a young boy onto Caroline to look after! Didn't they have facilities to care for parentless kids caught up in crimes back in 1981?
I'm very disappointed with how the Alex's family have been handled on the show, as both Caroline and Evan are continually being returned to – but remain the least interesting aspects of the show. And am I still supposed to care if "imaginary Caroline" lives or dies in the "imaginary car bomb"? Perhaps if I had a stronger desire to see Alex get back to her daughter, yes – but Molly only appears as a mute "ghost" in nightmares/visions. I think it would have been better to give viewers glimpses of Alex and Molly in the real 2008 through Alex's dreams – letting us see their relationship, and make us want to see them reunited for real. Just a thought.
Keeley Hawes has been criticised for her portrayal of Alex on the show, but I think that's generally uncalled for. I agree she sometimes lapses into histrionics, but that's how her character has been written. I find her a more alluring personality than Life On Mars' Sam Tyler, and Hawes gets some emotional scenes to play with in this episode that prove she has real talent. It's up to the writers to ensure Alex doesn't spent 50% of episodes dressed as a prostitute and flailing about the office being sarcastic.
I'm still not finding Gene Hunt anywhere near as compelling as he used to be, as scenes like his slow-motion swagger through a smashed window are embellished into caricature. At the height of the episode's finale (with Alex's life hanging in the balance), let's spend 30 seconds watching Gene walk through a window to the strains of Ultravox's "Vienna"? Hmmm. Ashes To Ashes signposts him as "Mr Cool" at every opportunity, where as Life On Mars kept everything more believable and let Gene Hunt the character speak for himself.
Overall, Over The Hill was an entertaining 60 minutes, if only for Hawes performance and the better handling of the parallel nature of imagined-'81 and real-'08. The storyline creaked on many occasions, Phil Davis was wasted as the villain, and I'm still completely unconvinced by the Alex/Caroline/Evan relationships, but I've adjusted to Ashes To Ashes enough to let the bad stuff slip by, and focus on the good stuff...
13 March 2008
BBC1, 9.00 pm
