Tuesday, April 28, 2009 Labels: Ashes To Ashes, TV Reviews

||SPOILERS|| A common complaint with Ashes To Ashes is that the '80s-set procedural is less interesting than the sci-fi trimmings. It was a criticism made of Life On Mars, too, but its predecessor had freshness and a compelling double-act to compensate. But, while the guts of this episode was another perfunctory storyline, there was a welcome move into a more serialized feel...

Things get underway when Gene (Philip Glenister) causes the death of a local gypsy called Jed, after ramming him off the road during a car chase. The man's fellow Romany's are understandably horrified, but Gene gets off the hook when DS Mackintosh (Roger Allam) invents an excuse for his actions: the presence of a child, whom Gene bravely saved from a reckless driver with his quick-thinking. Thrown into the mix is a bearded GP called Dr Battleford (Joseph Millson) who has an affinity with the gypsies, and possibly a connection to a pregnant teenager called Alva (Ellie Paskell)...

But, far more interesting was the continuation of the Gene/Macintosh situation, with Alex suspecting both are involved in police corruption that goes much deeper than bending facts to save CID some bad PR. Indeed, Alex discovers that Gene is being inducted into the Freemasons and the fraternity might be to blame for recent frustrations -- including why Gene's so reluctant to charge Dr Battleford for giving Jed sedatives at the wheel, because the doc's a member of his Lodge and it's part of their "code" to help each other. Gene also discovers that his predecessor at CID chose early retirement because he refused to be manipulated by Mackintosh, as he himself appears to be.

I have to say, it's a great idea to give us a recurring storyline to embellish the regular plots, acting as a thread through the season. It gives us something extra to tune in for every week, and the idea of Gene and Alex (Keeley Hawes) tackling police corruption (with Gene "undercover" we learn) is quite enticing -- particularly as Roger Allam always plays the type of smarmy villain you can't wait to see get his comeuppance. Also interesting to note that the corruption and the Masons are all-male, with the male-named Alex a woman who spends much of this episode believing she'll have to fight things alone. A key part of ATA has been putting Alex into a male-dominated environment, at a period in history when the tide was beginning to change for sexual office politics, so pitting her against an all-male clique was a juicy development.

Meanwhile, Alex is still rambling nonsense to Luigi (Joseph Long) and Chris (Marshall Lancaster) half the time, and the quirky way things in '82 seem to temporarily reflect what's happening to her unconscious body in '08 managed to stay entertaining.

What's nice is that there seems to be actual progression now; last week, Alex got the sense that her body had been found, and this week she's clearly being taken to hospital... a mechanic peering into a car engine suddenly starts talking like a paramedic viewing a body, Alex hears an ambicopter overheard in the empty streets, text on Gene's computer states "we are losing her" over and over, etc. And there are still some intriguing new developments -- like the sudden relevance of "the death of a princess", and a tarot card reader mentioning that Gene will have to "give up his power to a Tyler" (even if that's later explained as a component of Masonic ritual, not Sam Tyler, disappointingly.)

It's an episode about taking sides, really. Should Alex trust Gene, or will she have to fight this scandal alone? Is Gene going to side with "bent cop" Mackintosh? Occasionally, we're shown the characters watching the Falkland's War unfold on television, which again fed into the idea of taking sides in a conflict. Shaz (Montserrat Lombard) is sympathetic to the conscripted Argentine army, but Ray (Dean Andrews) firmly backs the British on patriotic principle.

Overall, there was a fair bit going on beneath the surface of episode 2, which helped improve a generally unimpressive story about a creepy doctor, some pilloried gypsies and a young girl he got pregnant. The burgeoning scandal at CID should give Ashes a strong foundation if its standalone stories fail to spark, there were some good character moments between Gene and Alex, the symbolism/quirkiness imbued in Ashes' premise is holding up nicely (throwing Freemasons into the melting pot should stoke the theory fires), and funnier dialogue was spat during this episode than the entirety of season 1 ("a hot cow's arse isn't my idea of a power drink!" / "this motor's more a part of me than me own ball sack!")


27 April 2009
BBC1, 9pm

Writer: Matthew Graham
Director: Catherine Morshead

Cast: Philip Glenister (Gene), Keeley Hawes (Alex), Dean Andrews (Ray), Marshall Lancaster (Chris), Montserrat Lombard (Shaz), Roger Allam (DS Mackintosh), Adrian Dunbar (Martin Summers), Joseph Millson (Dr Battleford), Ellie Paskell (Alva), Paola Dionisotti (Old Mother), Joseph Long (Luigi), Geff Francis (Viv James), Grace Vance (Molly Drake) & Dean Bardini (Terry)