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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good sequel, March 7, 2010
There is somewhat of a spoiler in this review for Life on Mars and possibly Ashes, so if you have not watched them yet, don't read further.
I'm glad to hear there will be a Season 3 of Ashes and I hope they don't make a mistake like they did in Life on Mars. Think about this: if you were the protagonist and returned to modern times, wouldn't you do a background history check on Gene Hunt and the others? I thought the ending to LonM would have been so much more believable, if he'd looked back and found the other characters died at the tunnel - they were real people and died - then he makes the leap, comes back and saves them. I hope in Season 3 of Ashes, they show a background check of what happened after she leaves to justify any decision to go back.
Okay, that's out of the way, now on to the review of Ashes. It took me a bit to get into the characters, I love the clown, the ending of season 1 surprised me, thought it would be the godfather. Also thought the decision when the cop is shot was dumb, easy thing would be to bang yourself on the noggin, call it in and say you had the meeting, got knocked on the head, woke up and the cop was dead and gun placed in your hand. A cop would be believed, average joe would be in prison.
All in all, an excellent show, great tunes, and decent character development; who didn't want to cheer at the Hunt speech in the squad room?
Not available in US versions, but there is some free software that allows you to view region two, VLC is what I used.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What An Ending, May 22, 2010
We have just seen the last episode of series three here in the UK,the finale.WOW,what a twist,what an emotional coaster ride,you will not believe it,it all ties in right from the very first episode of LOM.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You Learn to Care Even if you Don't Believe (Partial Spoiler), October 24, 2010
The time travel cop series that began with LIFE ON MARS continues with ASHES TO ASHES. In the first ASHES TO ASHES, Keeley Hawes is DI Alex Drake, who follows the temporal path set down by DI Sam Tyler, who was the first to travel back in time nearly thirty years. And just as he was the politically correct officer of the 2000s trying to survive in a decidedly unpolitically correct Manchester of 1973, so too is DI Drake only in her case she materializes in London in 1983, meeting most of the same bunch that gave Tyler such a hard time. In ASHES TO ASHES Part II, directors Catherine Morshead, Ben Bolt, and Philip John avoid the time travel paradoxes that had afflicted the various STAR TREK incarnations by fudging what was really happening to DI Drake. Struck by an assassin's bullet, she awakens in London in 1983. Ironically, she has studied Tyler's case and now seems destined to repeat his experience. The show limits the possibilities to three: both Tyler and Drake are insane, both are in a coma, or both truly have travelled in time. Without giving too much away, directors Morshead et al broadly suggest that DI Drake can tap into both dimensions with each glimpse supporting the coma scenario.
What makes ATA (II) work is that the viewer learns to care about the collective fates of the cast. The viewer quickly learns to ignore the logical flubs of time travel paradoxes so that the individual personalities stand out. Keeley Hawes as DI Drake is much like John Simm as DI Tyler. Both have their feet planted in the past while their consciousnesses bounce back and forth from that past to their future present. The dramatic center of both LOM and ATA is Philip Glenister as DCI Gene Hunt, whose boorishness is a carefully crafted pose that permits him to solve crimes that he feels sure will remain forever unsolved were he to permit Tyler or Drake to lead an investigation. At times, he lets himself feel attracted to Drake even as he insults her with a Neanderthalism. The remainder of the cast is top notch with each one taking turns at the center of things. Dean Andrews as Ray Carling, Marshal Lancaster as Chris Skelton, and Montserrat Lombard as Chaz Granger are permitted to grow into round characters. One of the final episodes forces Hunt to learn that one of his trusted crew is "bent" (on the take). His reaction is painful to watch and it is precisely his pain that adds to the manysided layers of audience interest.
One interesting ongoing plot complication is the recurring appearance of a mystery character who knows who Drake really is and when and where she is from. This is turn leads to the directors' deft dismissal of the standard time travel paradox that demands that all travelers acknowledge the futility of attempting to alter the time line. The closing episode (#8) clearly sets up the final season for Drake and Hunt. The first two seasons were eminently enjoyable, probably more so for those old enough to recognize the myriad of allusions to then contemporary cultural icons of entertainment. Hunt is perpetually fond of name dropping of movie stars. If he lives long enough to meet a future version of Drake, he might even drop his own.
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