WRITER: Matthew Graham[SPOILERS] "My name is Alex Drake and, quite frankly, your guess is as good as mine" are the wry words that open Ashes To Ashes' final series – a hint, if one were needed, that the answer to its three-year mystery (five if you count Life On Mars) won't have anything to do with a comatose modern-day detective simply fantasizing of the '80s during brain-death. At least we hope not, because where's the fun in a mystery being exactly what's been alluded to from the start?
DIRECTOR: David Drury
GUEST CAST: Danny Mays, Joseph Long, Geff Francis, Simon Merrells, Tanya Franks, Jadie-Rose Hobson, Jane Bertish & Matthew Amroliwala
This premiere had to answer last year's provocative cliffhanger, where Alex was accidentally shot and woke up in a 2008 hospital room, apparently having snapped out of her coma, only to find Gene's face plastered on various monitors and bellowing for her to wake up. Did Alex make it back home to 2008, but Gene's been revealed as a reality-hopping deity? Or is she still in her coma, now fantasizing about being in a coma? Or neither.
There was a fun opening to return us to the show's status quo, with Alex back in the "present" but wishing she could get back to her figurative Wonderland, because, like Sam Tyler before her, the "fantasy" is more appealing than "reality". That longing to return is despite the fact she's been reunited with her daughter Molly (off-screen, frustratingly), as there's a throwaway line explaining that Mol's staying with her dad while Alex works through her mental problems -- which I didn't really buy. We've spent the past few years watching Alex desperately trying to get back to her daughter, and now we're expected to believe Alex would rather go back to fight crime with a bad perm? It may have been plausible for singleton Sam to embrace the olden days, but Alex? I didn't buy it.
Regardless, it wasn't long before realities started to blur again; with Ray (Dean Andrews), Shaz (Montserrat Lombard), Chris (Marshall Lancaster) and Gene appearing on a video rental shop's TV screens and emblazoned across DVD cases (unfortunately reminding me of the execreable Red Dwarf "Back To Earth"), prompting Alex to wake up back in 1983 thanks to a slap to the face from Gene. In another hard to swallow development, we learned that Gene was fresh back from Spain, having fled the country for three-months out of fear he'd be blamed for hospitalizing Alex.
Funny, my recollection of series 2's finale was that Summers shot Alex before he was killed, so would it really be beyond '80s policing to determine what happened? Would it ever be considered likely that Gene shot Alex, intending to kill her? And why would Gene think fleeing to the continent would help his cause? Purely from a storytelling perspective, why was it even necessary to say Gene had run away for months? The truth surrounding who shot Alex could easily have been dealt with off-screen in the time Alex was unconscious, so she could wake up and get back to work with a clean slate.
You could actually give yourself a headache trying to make sense of Ashes To Ashes sometimes, which has always been its biggest problem regarding its mythology. I've never been totally convinced the writers can or will pull of a satisfying conclusion; it was only the emotional impact of Life On Mars' finale that filled cracks in its logic. The knowledge that series 3 of Ashes is intended to be an unofficial continuation of Mars, with the two show's converging for an ultimate payoff in episode 8, is actually a slight concern. If the big explanation is nonsense it'll tarnish the previous show's shining legacy. Or did the US remake already do that?
Back to the episode, and this week's storyline involved a simple kidnapping and ransom demand for a schoolgirl called Dorothy (Jadie-Rose Hobson) -– a nod to The Wizard Of Oz, and she even had a gingham dress and pigtails in case you missed it. The story wasn't particularly interesting, and fell prey to the cliché that the most recognisable guest-star would be outed as the culprit, and it didn;'t help that the episode was bookended by the more interesting sci-fi trappings. It's not that Ashes is incapable of doing good cop show drama, just that the more interesting mythology sometimes overshadows the crime-of-the-week storyline, particularly in episodes like this where Alex's existential questioning was foremost on our mind.
I don't know, and I'm not sure I care yet. It just strikes me that Life On Mars had a beautifully simple concept that the writers followed through to a conclusion that may not have made logical sense, but felt appropriate and earned. In Ashes To Ashes, the exact same concept is being used to fuel another show, and to keep our interest they're having to thicken the soup with more vagaries and misdirections. It's possible they have a fantastic conclusion planned that will make sense of both shows and go down as a masterstroke, but I can't help thinking it's going to be a nebulous letdown -- because once you start needlessly overcomplicating a simple premise to sustain an idea five years... any attempt to tie up loose ends and make sense of the mess is going to run into trouble.
Asides
- The biggest mystery here is who restyled Alex's hair while she was in a coma, as she woke up with a completely new 'do!
- Who says "warrant schmarrant"? Is Alex a Jewish New Yorker now?
- I do like the sense of family with the characters: Gene and Alex the parents; Ray, Chris and Shaz their three kids. Ray even spent this episode sulking about not getting daddy's approval.
- Is it standard practice for CID to install a giant countdown clock in their office, when villains give them a deadline to work to?
- It seems that the spectre of a disfigured policeman is going to be this year's "Clown" to haunt Alex's visions, which must in some way be related to the secret Gene's keeping about Sam's death. And is it likely John Simm's going to make a reappearance at some point?
- The company "Dot Matrix"; a nod to both Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz and The Matrix?
- For all BBC HD viewers, next week's episode isn't going to be simulcast in HD because of the US Open golf, so you'll either have to wait until the following Monday (12 April) or just watch standard-definition on BBC1.
