Writer: Ashley Pharaoh
Director: Jonny CampbellCast: Philip Glenister (DCI Gene Hunt), Keeley Hawes (DI Alex Drake), Dean Andrews (DS Ray Carling), Marshall Lancaster (DC Chris Skelton), Montserrat Lombard (WPC Sharon "Shaz" Granger), Amelia Bullmore (Caroline Price), Stephen Campbell-Moore (Evan White), Geoffrey Palmer (Lord Scarman), Andrew Clover (The Clown/Tim Price), Sean Harris (Arthur Layton), Geff Francis (Viv James), Joseph Long (Luigi), Matthew Baynton (Tom Robinson), Jim Creighton (Angus Ashton), Andrew Brooke (PC), Lucy Cole (Young Alex), Grace Vance (Molly Drake) & Paul Anderson (PC Murder Suspect)
Alex tries to prevent the death of her parents, as Gene prepares CID for inspection by a VIP...It's the day of reckoning: 10 October 1981. The day a young Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes) escaped from a car bomb that killed her parents; only now, she has a chance to stop history repeating itself (well, in her "mind's eye"), but is forced to take drastic measures to ensure a better outcome...
Co-creator Ashley Pharaoh makes his writing debut on Ashes To Ashes to cap the season-long storyline of the puzzling car bomb that kills Tom and Caroline Price (Amelia Bullmore), which has been glimpsed in gradually less-confusing flashes since episode 1. The show has failed to make Caroline a very likeable person, though -- meaning the prospect of her imminent death instead filled me with a ghoulish sense of glee throughout his finale.
As usual, Alex makes the going unnecessarily tough -- trying to prevent a bomb going off whilst rambling like a lunatic. Is she compelled to make bizarre statements whenever she opens her mouth? She might at well just regale everyone with the truth about her situation, as it hardly matters: all the characters blithely ignore her or, in the case of Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister), shrug her twittering aside with a sneer.
Mind you, one scene between Alex and mother Caroline managed to achieve some semblance of a realistic reaction to Alex’s nuttiness -- with Caroline insisting Alex is "confused" and in need of therapy. But even then, Caroline doesn't think it strange Alex sobs at the briefest mention of her daughter/family, and still isn’t freaked-out by how Alex has imposed herself on the Prices since they first met.
Much of Alex's Big Day (why the childish-sounding title?) involves Alex trying to prevent the car bomb she knows will happen on a certain stretch of road, in a certain type of car, beside a certain billboard for soap. After faking a phone call from an informant about the approaching blast, Alex manages to get help from Ray (Dean Andrews) in helping her stop the Prices death. I was actually rather refreshing to see Alex partner someone other than Gene, for once.
After deducing that the Prices will be borrowing a car belonging to family friend Angus Ashton (Jim Creighton), a man currently taking part in a Gay Pride march, Alex takes drastic measures to ensure Angus' vehicle can't be used as an instrument of death -- by crushing it in a big, pink tank she commandeers at the march. Yes, it's silliness for the sake of silliness, with Alex the only person in the world who can drive a tank from standing in the gun turret. Just how long were heels in the 1980s?
There's also the return of criminal Arthur Layton (Sean Harris) to contend with -- the creepy guy who shot Alex in 2008, causing her "jump" into this imaginary-'81, where she arrested him in episode 1. Ray discovers that Layton is being represented by the Price lawyer team and also has a bomb-making background -- so could he be involved in a plot to murder the Prices? After a face-to-face confrontation in prison, Alex becomes convinced Layton knows more than he's letting on, but he's at least safe behind bars where he can’t do any harm...
With the car crushed, prime suspect Layton incarcerated, and advertisers confirming they have no intention of erecting a billboard near the bomb site, Alex is hopeful she's managed to annul the threat. But, just to be sure, she plants drugs inside the Price's home and arrests her own mother and father. After throwing the Prices in jail (which is currently full of Gay Pride marchers singing the Village People’s greatest hits), surely Alex can sigh in relief and be whisked back to 2008, job well done? Well, no…
Unfortunately, Gene releases the Prices early and fate quickly conspires to wreck Alex’s plan. Layton is bailed from jail by Evan (Stephen Campbell Moore), and the Prices resume their car journey, with young Alex (Lucy Cole) carrying that portentous red balloon. As Alex and Gene arrive at the scene, Alex notices the billboard ad she remembers – actually stuck to the side of a truck -- but it’s too late to stop the terrible event unfolding. As her younger self leaves the car to chase after her balloon, with Arthur Layton watching from a safe distance, Tim Price is revealed as the real architect of disaster – his face slowly morphing into The Clown who terrorizes Alex in visions, as he triggers the fatal car explosion himself.
Young Alex runs to the safety of Gene’s embrace (not Evan, as adult Alex remembered), although Evan has also arrived on the scene, staring in disbelief at Tom’s extraordinary suicide. As the flames from the wreckage lick the sky, Alex screams in fury at her failure, and information is delivered in ensuing scenes to plug gaps -- primarily through a video-tape confession Tom left behind. Alex’s dad was apparently aware Evan had slept with his wife, and thought it best to end all his families' lives now the sanctity of his marriage had been broken. Layton was freed from jail purely to construct the car bomb required to do the deed.
Overall, the finale wasn’t too shabby when all’s said and done. I certainly didn’t guess Tim would be the villain, although it was perhaps obvious in hindsight because his character was kept suspiciously on the periphery. Was that to hide the fact Clown actor Andrew Clover was playing Tim, too? I wasn’t convinced an intelligent man like Tim would think killing his family in a would be a good idea, but I can suspend my disbelief. But why bother bailing Layton from prison just to build a car-bomb? That seemed a bit too coincidental to Alex’s own "history" with Layton, and aren’t there easier ways to kill your wife and daughter anyway?
Ashes To Ashes’ continuing struggle with its premise reared its head on a few occasions again – with elements once again wobbling between treating Alex’s situation as genuine time-travel and imagined reality. Why would Alex be amazed to discover Gene was the one who hugged her younger self in '81, following the bomb? He wasn’t. Gene’s just a "construct" of her imagination (as she always reminds us), so it must have been Evan in the real ’81 incident. The revelation of everything was certainly plausible (particularly why Evan would never tell Alex the awful truth) – but because we’re not dealing with actual time-travel, the events were ultimately just a theory based on Alex’s childhood memories and a fantasy of '80s pop-culture. Oh, and characters created by Sam Tyler.
The subplot was disappointing, with CID facing inspection from a visiting Lord Scarman (Geoffrey Palmer), which resulted in Chris (Marshall Lancaster) having to pose as a pest jailed for indecent exposure. Scarman later decided to sit in a cell to understand the prison experience (while the jails were full of crass gay stereotypes), before being on the receiving end of a Gene rant clearly directed at every liberal politician watching the show and arguing for the return of old-fashioned policing.
Gene’s tub-thumping got the full orchestral treatment from the soundtrack, but it felt forced and simple-minded to me. After all, there were good reasons cops like Gene died out, although it’s easy to see why we feel nostalgic for "the good ol' days" – even if it’s through the rose-tinted spectrum of the Gene Genie’s 70s/80s adventures.
So where does episode 8 leave us? Alex’s parents are dead. Her younger self will be adopted by Evan. Shaz (Montserrat Lombard) made a full recovery. Gene and Alex’s relationship took a step forward with a romantic meal. But Alex is still stuck inside her imagination, despite solving the mind-game she had set herself here.
A second season has been commissioned, and I’m guessing Ashes To Ashes might even push beyond that – if only because Keeley Hawes isn't as jittery as John Simm about starring in a long-running drama. There are certainly plenty of avenues left to explore with the cultural disparities between '81 and '08, but is there a way to extend the Prisoner-style trappings of Alex Drake* -- with the freaky Clown, and her quest to get back to daughter Molly? The scenes of her hallucinations were already beginning to bore me.
Overall, I think its unfortunate Ashes To Ashes is a spin-off from Life On Mars. If the show is judged separately, it does a number of things better than Mars -- Alex is more exciting than Sam, and the marriage of cop drama and sci-fi is handled with more sophistication -- but it’s ultimately crippled by a premise that grows staler by the episode. And Gene Hunt went from mesmerizing brilliance to predictable caricature sometime between 1973 and 1981.
27 March 2008
BBC1, 9.00 pm
* Incidentally, is it just coincidence that Alex Drake has the same surname as Number Six’s assumed name (John Drake) from The Prisoner? And Alex Drake sounds very similar to Alice Drake from Prisoner sequel comic Shattered Visage.
