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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Ashes to Ashes

  
  

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Feverfew
16:41 / 18.04.10
So... It's back, again. The question asked a long time ago, above, i.e. if you go into a coma in the Genie-verse, where do you go? has been answered.

Which is nice.

I like to have positive things to say about... things, because I'm a starry-eyed optimist, but I kind of fail having watched the last three weeks' worth of Ashes to Ashes.

It's just... Lazy, it feels like, in terms of writing. Alex is back in 1983 because nothing works on coma patients like a Good Hard Slap, but before she's even back there the show's setting up plot threads with scant regard to whether anyone will remember them. Dead policeman being exhumed in the present day? Young policeman with a burnt face turning up as the hallucination du jour? All there.

Granted, there's some character development; Ray has evolved a little having been promoted to DI in Gene's absence - but other decisions smack of future plot-setting-up, too, such as Shaz and Chris's relationship now being totally over without any details as to why.

There are some odd moments, too; Shaz decides to quit, only to be talked into staying with the promise of a full CID post if she keeps up her quality of work, which was proved by stabbing a terminally-ill serial killer in the lungs with a screwdriver -

- I know now what I've been doing wrong to get that promotion at the office -

- and there are these weird little moments wherein wherever Gene gives anyone the validation they need, the screen goes black and contra-zooms in on their face. It happened to Shaz following the stabby-stabby, and it happened to Ray after he doused himself in petrol and experienced catharsis to solve a case.

I'm wondering if Chris has to rip out the still-beating heart of a Minotaur next episode, frankly, to get his own 'moment'.

The antagonist, however, is kind of smart, in that he's attempting to bring Gene down by empowering his subordinates and shaking their faith in him, along with checking through Gene's past cases for fuckups - but he is, oddly, a little too creepy.

All this and The Sam Tyler question that most people had forgotten about for two series is back, with prominence. Did Gene kill him? Would that make any logical sense?

Does that matter anymore?

Stay tuned...
 
 
Feverfew
16:42 / 18.04.10
Although props, perhaps, for changing the voiceover in the first episode to

My name's Alex Drake. And quite frankly, your guess is as good as mine.
 
 
■
09:02 / 19.04.10
Only just been catching up on this and the fact that I've missed the whole of series two and it doesn't seem to matter must say something about the aimlessness. It's still and enjoyable cop show in the 1980s mould, and the characters are still very engaging, but instead of monster of the week it's become internal demon of the week.
As has been suggested before (a looong time ago, possibly back while LoM was still going on), Gene is some kind of supernatural/fictional nexus and while woozily waking this morning, my brain said to me "What kind of angel/demon could he be?" Then I thought of something so painfully obvious it couldn't possibly be right, but does seem to fit.
The Gene genie is just that. A genie. What was Sam's suicide if it wasn't wish-fulfilment? Not in the Disney mould but the idea of an efreet or a djinn, meddling in human affairs and giving people everything they want, whether it's the best for them or not. The monkey paw, the wishing well, all those fairy tales about being careful about what you wish for. That's Gene. It's probably not what he was conceieved as being, but the way he's turning out this series.

Just a fuzzy early morning thought.
 
 
Feverfew
20:15 / 21.05.10
That was... a curiously good, nicely executed season and show ending episode.

Not in the Disney mould but the idea of an efreet or a djinn, meddling in human affairs and giving people everything they want, whether it's the best for them or not.

You were kind of right, although it was half self-wish-fulfillment and half-kind of-benevolent duty. Although the 'will-they-won't-they-return just in time for the final set-piece' was a little obvious, although in an 80s' television kind of way, so hey.

Nicely done, I thought.
 
  

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