Bowie's Ashes & Major Tom
Okay, let's start with the titular David Bowie track: "Ashes to Ashes"; a musical sequel to Bowie's 1969 hit "Space Oddity". The song essentially follows the character of Major Tom into space, as he regains communication with Ground Control and tells them he's happy where he is –- only for them to pass him off as nothing but a junkie. There doesn't seem to be much connection to the Ashes To Ashes TV show (the song is associated with drug culture, not time-travel, but it's interesting to note that, in the first episode of Ashes, Alex Drake's daughter Molly mentions she has a macaw called Yuri. Was it named after Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space? And was Alex's father, Tom Price, named after Major Tom?Alex/Alice & The White Rabbit
Onto Alex Drake herself; our heroine. Her first name obviously sounds very similar to "Alice" when spoken aloud (of Wonderland fame) and Drake possibly references The Prisoner (as the surname most often assumed to be that of imprisoned Number Six). The Prisoner has parallels to Ashes To Ashes, as both shows deal with a character waking up in a strange world that's alien to their everyday experiences. Interestingly, "Alice Drake" was the heroine in an unofficial, but highly-regarded, Prisoner graphic novel sequel called Shattered Visage.Alex's journey back to 1981 from 2008 has similarities with Alice venturing down a burrow after the White Rabbit (who was obsessed with time, remember), and arriving in the unfamiliar Wonderland. 1981 isn't as surreal as the invented Wonderland, but it's likewise a place where Alex has to be taught, through trial and error, cultural and societal rules.
The White Rabbit (famous for crying out "I'm late! I'm late!" while clutching a pocket watch) is paralleled in Ashes by rodent-faced criminal Arthur Layton, who shoots Alex in the head and causes her mental time-slip, taking her "down the rabbit burrow". That's "Arthur Layton". "A. Layton". "A late one"? Okay, so maybe that's a stretch...
Tweedledum, Tweedledee & the Cheshire Cat
The regular characters in Ashes To Ashes were brought over from Life On Mars, but I suppose you could see dimwit cops Chris and Ray as CIDs resident Tweeldedum and Tweedledee. And how about toothy Shaz as the permanently grinning Cheshire Cat?
Through The Looking-Glass,
and What Alex Found There
and What Alex Found There
"Through The Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There" is the sequel to Alice In Wonderland, and it actually has more influence on the Ashes To Ashes TV show (itself a sequel, of course.) In both Mars and Ashes, the use of a television as a connection to the real world could be construed as a modern equivalent of a looking-glass. The Looking-Glass novel also features the game of chess very prominently, which leads us onto...
Chess: from pawn to queen
In Looking-Glass World, Alice finds herself playing a game of Chess, which is used by author Lewis Carroll as a metaphor for fate. Fate is a significant factor in Ashes To Ashes, too -- as Alex hopes to cheat it by saving the lives of her parents in the car bomb that killed them in the real 1981. And what does the ceiling of CID resemble? That's right; a grid of black-and-white squares hanging over everyone's head. I'm sure everyone spotted that.Alice's role in Through The Looking-Glass is to become a queen, from the starting position of a lowly pawn. She has limited movement as a pawn and outside forces influence her choices and behaviour. In the book, Chess is a symbol for how Alice can't escape her inevitable maturation into womanhood (a queen) from a child (a pawn).
In Ashes To Ashes, Alex is already an adult, but her fish-out-of-water status in '81 makes her a naïve pawn of sorts, on a predetermined quest to beat her "mind's game" by becoming an all-powerful queen who can move in all directions. She charts her progression using another grid-system, too: her wall calendar. The intention of the series (although it never quite achieved this aim, in my opinion) was for every episode of the show to gradually take Alex a step further along the "game" to save her parents and assure her child-self's ascension to better-adjusted adulthood. So she's actually playing the game on behalf of her younger self.
Lewis Carroll's use of chess suggested there's a higher power guiding people through life, and that all events are preordained. It’s a deterministic concept of life, where free will is an illusion and individual choices are bound by rigidly determined rules and guided by an overarching, unseen force. Could this "unseen force" become more apparent in future episodes of Ashes To Ashes – as creators/writers Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharaoh have alluded to there being a deeper mystery to things. They surely can't keep the "it's all in Alex's head" idea rolling, which was really just a post-modern twist on Life On Mars (having a character who had effectively seen the Mars TV show, through reading her time-travelling predecessor's report.)
The Clown; life, death and resurrection
The Clown was a prominent figure throughout season 1; its look based on Bowie's pierrot clown make-up on the "Ashes To Ashes" single's front cover. A clown's makeup is historically a symbol of death and resurrection, with the white (death) applied first and the colours (life) applied on top. Thus, a clown's face is a reminder that we're on a journey from death to life. How fitting for Alex, who is genuinely trying to cheat death in her illusory '81 world, after being shot in the head in '08. In the show, the Clown was an evil character who symbolized death throughout, and it was interesting to see how his make-up disguised his true identity: Alex's father Tom, the real harbinger of death for the Price family. The resurrection aspect of a clown's make-up perhaps nods at how Shaz was brought back to life after seeing him -- with help from Alex -- who began to realize she has control over life and death in this imagined world.
Queen or King?
"Ever drifting down the stream --
Lingering in the golden gleam --
Life, what is it but a dream?"
-- Through The Looking-GlassLingering in the golden gleam --
Life, what is it but a dream?"
So who's Gene Hunt? The "Queen" Of Hearts? He certainly has an "off with their head!" attitude – with an "act now, ask questions later" outlook on life. And images of the real Queen (Elizabeth II) are often seen on the show: in Gene's office in a small photo frame, in a large painting hanging on the wall in CID, and in the background of a few locations (such as the junk seller's office in episode 1.)
Or is Gene actually the Red King? In Looking-Glass, Tweedledum and Tweedledee tell Alice that she herself is only a creation of the Red King's dream. So if Gene is the show's Red King figure, everything about Ashes To Ashes (and Life On Mars, by extension) is actually coming from the imagination of a very real Gene Hunt. This might explain a closing statement from Gene in the season 1 finale, after comforting the young Alex: "I'm everywhere. I was needed and I was there." Some have taken this to mean Gene's a God-like figure -- which might be true, but it isn't as intriguing as finding out Mars and Ashes are Gene's dreams. If that were true, in what era is the real Gene living? Is he in a coma? Is he a vastly different character to his dream persona? I suppose he'd have to be if he can create stories with this much complexity in a dream/coma.
A few other thoughts: (1) Ashes symbolize sorrow and penitence (see Alex's misery about her childhood) (2) The closing refrain of Bowie's song "Ashes To Ashes" goes: "My mama said to get things done, you'd better not mess with Major Tom," which seems to suggest you have to make the best of the future and not dwell on the past. Is that a clue to how Alex can jump back to the 21st-century?
Ashes To Ashes: Series 2 -- premieres 20 April, BBC1 @9pm
