livapr99 For the record, I must state two things before I write this review; 1)I really loved Life on Mars, especially Sam and Gene's bile-filled, witty narks at one another and the fact that each of the story lines tied into his predicament back home in 2006 and events in his childhood in some way or another.2) I have only seen the first season of Ashes to Ashes, so it is likely I will return to review the next two once I have completed my viewing.Now then, we can commence! Life on Mars was an innovative series, cleverly tying timey-wimey plot devices, well-written and lovable characters and brilliantly dramatic story-telling together to form one man's struggle to return to his own time. So, with a fair bit of skepticism, I began to watch Ashes to Ashes, just to resolve the whole 'was it a construct, was it limbo' dilemma in my head.It would be a lie to say that I despise the fact that it's now Hunt's show, because placing Philip Glenister as the lead is a stroke of genius. I don't know a person alive who detests the old "overweight, over-the-hill" DCI with "an unhealthy obsession with male bonding" and a love of fast cars and kicking in nonces across the country. With him is Chris Skelton, dumb and dim-witted but enthusiastic in his work- and my favourite of the characters- and Ray Carling, still violent and thuggish but more likable this time around, along with Chris' WPC girlfriend Shaz, intelligent and sweet in her world view but not afraid to take on the sexist blokes that litter her workplace. In the place of Annie, Shaz is a worthy successor.However, I do seem to have a persistent problem with DI Alex Hardy, mainly because I can't emote with her as I did with Sam and due to the fact that Keeley Hawes- however hard she tries- is not as good an actor in my eyes as John Simm. She's quite annoying and aggravating, in my opinion, and I can't feel any sense of jeopardy over her situation. With Sam, one felt in peril at every moment, with one episode including him coming close to death at the hands of a hostage taker and his mother turning off his life support simultaneously, but Alex hardly ever receives messages from our world, instead being haunted by a sinister clown warning her of events to come in her assumed "dreamscape." This, I feel, is truly not as effective as Sam's predicament, seeing how Alex could just be a woman from the 80s and not from 2008 at all.The plotting is still well-done, with Gene kicking seven bells out of anyone who won't give up the goods and being constantly accompanied by an air of mighty self-importance, Chris still acting the idiot at times and Ray remaining as sexist as ever in his outlook. That's all well and good, since we've seen these characters before, but again Alex's story seems to be the weakest of the series.Since her shooting was linked to her parents' death, she endeavours to save them from their grisly fate at the hands of a car bomb, which more than rings a few bells with me. Sam wasn't run down due to his father's illegal activities, but he still felt the pressure of saving his idol while ignoring any negative and blatantly obvious evidence suggesting that maybe Victor Tyler wasn't the nice bloke Sam suspected him to be. Caroloine Price, Alex's mother, truly is a nasty piece of work, and the writers don't hide behind the smokescreen they offered for Vic in LoM. To be honest, I can't blame the killer for blowing her up, since she comes across as a real- well, a not-very-nice person, anyway.In short, Ashes to Ashes is not as well-crafted as LoM, at least not the first season. However, the return of Gene, Chris and Ray to joyous fanfare, as well as the addition of young Shaz, ensures that I'll continue watching despite my qualms with the character of Alex. I only hope that the plot will veer away from the template set out by LoM, since the finale of the first season felt like a slight bit of a rehash of previous events.Fair viewing, yes, but if you exclude Alex from the mix, Ashes to Ashes is just as good as it's predecessor, even if it falls short with the first series.

Audax67 On seeing series 1:Crude, puerile, facile, over-acted... was it done this way on purpose, and if so what are they making fun of - the poor wights that stay glued? John Sim reportedly thought "Life on Mars" was a stupid idea, this one is an even more stupid retread with lousy acting (or is it direction?) thrown in.The Audi coupé is about the best thing in it. Lovely cars, they were. For the rest of it, the criminals are obvious, the cops bumble about, the floozy who talks phunny (Alex Whatever) is ludicrous. The guy who popped her one at the beginning should have used a dumdum.Yet funnily enough, it's quite enjoyable in its lobotomized way...Several months later:Changed my rating from 2 to 7. Why? Someone else in the family bought series 2 and 3. The way they tied it off explains why everything is crude, puerile and over-acted. Cunning devils...

jhsteel I agree with those who say that Ashes to Ashes (or A2A as we fans call it) is different from Life on Mars (LOM), but that has several explanations. Firstly, it is set in the 1980s, and it is written in the spirit of 1980s cop shows, with fashion, glamorous shots and set pieces, etc. Secondly, the central hero is female and her perspective on life is different from Sam Tyler's. She also knows more, having read Sam's notes about his time in Gene Hunt's world in 1973.However, it still has the unexpectedness and the central mystery of its predecessor, so that we are always wanting to know why Alex is stuck in 1981 and how and if she will get back to 2008. And of course, it has the fabulous Gene Hunt who comes into his own in this series. He is still moody and magnificent, and Philip Glenister has created a character with such charisma that I can't stop watching him. All the continuing characters are wonderful, and so are the new ones; Shaz and Viv in particular. Sam Tyler in LOM was intense, driven and edgy, and the darkness and gritty nature of 1970s style cop shows was well represented in LOM. This is equally great, but it's a different animal. I love both shows and I am really looking forward to the next series of A2A. The things that were revealed about Alex's past create new mysteries that need to be solved, so I am hoping that we will find out more. The most original aspect of both LOM and A2A is the central premise that someone can visit another time frame, whether real or imagined, and experience life there, while their body in "real life" is in a coma or near to death. It's a fascinating idea that has a lot of scope, and since it is a fantasy, anything can happen. The identity of Gene Hunt is open to debate - who is he really? I hope that we find out a lot more about this compelling character in the future. British TV at its best. Oh, and I also love 1980s music - really!

Graham Greene It is probably wrong to compare Ashes to Ashes to the previous Life on Mars, despite the fact that both programmes come from the same creative team and exist in the same thematic universe. Still, Life on Mars was such a benchmark and such a surprisingly rewarding piece of work that such comparisons are really hard to resist. With Life on Mars we had an intelligent piece of television that offered a great story, subtle character interaction and a genuine imagination; blending elements of science-fiction with psychological character analysis, as well as juxtaposing ideas of archaic, twentieth century police procedures with the more high-tech but sterile policing of today. Ashes to Ashes is somewhat similar in the respect that the idea of self-analysis and an attempt to correct the future by way of the past is central to the development of the main character, but somehow it lacks the dynamics or sense of overall purpose that really made Life on Mars such a valid and exciting piece of work.At its most extreme, you could argue that the series here is nothing more than a shameless cash-in; with the producers and writers copying the format of Life on Mars completely and giving us more of Gene Hunt and his particular blend of politically-incorrect, heart-on-sleeve policing against an environment of warm nostalgia. However, even here, the use of the early 1980's as the principal time-frame already shows the character of Hunt to be something of a woeful anachronism; as out of time as the stranded heroine Alex Drake against a backdrop of feminism, class war, immigration, privatisation and a gradual acceptance of homosexuality. Also, the potentially interesting political climate, with the shadow of the Falkland's, tyranny of the Tories, confrontation between races, terrorist attacks and the royal wedding are all reduced to minor details intended to flesh out the creation of a world that is continually undermined by shoddy writing, haphazard direction an attempt to condense the more iconic aspects of 80's culture into a sort of microcosm that feels at odds with a decade supposedly in its infancy. Or is it? The thematic concerns this time around are less about the clashing of cultures and backgrounds in a way that makes for satisfying drama, and more about the creation of a self-aware universe that not only comments on itself but on the notion of the "sequel". As with the audience, Alex Drake understands completely the world that she has entered into and is trying to control it to her advantage. She knows about the characters because she's experienced them through the writings of Sam Tyler in the same way that we the audience experienced them by actually watching Life on Mars. This does rob the programme of some tension, particularly in the first couple of episodes before the characters finally settle into their new roles and the broader aspects of the story become apparent, but it does open the story up to more intriguing ideas and interpretations regarding the role that Alex has in creating the world from her own memories and distorted idea of what the 80's really were.Unlike Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes was less immediate and for me, and this was the programme's greatest flaw. Once it gets going its fantastic; the examination into Alex's parents and the factors that could possibly have led to their demise is rich with drama and emotion and really pays off in the final episode. However, for me, there were far too many lose ends leading up to this, and far too much of the writers having DCI Hunt do outlandish things in an attempt to appease the audience who buy into the whole "iconic" thing and want Gene Hunt catchphrases on their-mobiles. The emphasis on the drama should have remained with Drake consistently, because it is here where the story comes together; with more interplay between her and her parents and less of the Hunt sailing a speedboat under the arches of Tower Bridge and firming machine guns, like he's some colourful cartoon caricature. Or maybe that's the point? Given the fact that the first three episodes were so weak that I almost gave up on this completely - there didn't seem to be any direction in regards to the plot in the same way that Life on Mars so skilfully blended the past, present and visions of Sam Tyler into a jaw-dropping drama - the only way I could interpret Ashes to Ashes was as a post-modern pastiche akin to Takashi Miike's Dead or Alive trilogy. And it makes sense; with the world of Ashes being a complete "construct"; a self-aware artifice create by the character for the character as she lays dying with a bullet in her head, attempting to make sense, not only of the historic chain of events that led to this tragedy, but also the world created by Sam Tyler that was never fully explained. Sure, there are flaws in this theory, but there are also flaws in the show; with far too much pandering to the whims of Hunt-aficionados and less of the tight, tense, labyrinthine blending of self-examination and the self-preservation of a dying brain.It will be interesting to see where the writers take this in the second series. Hopefully we will have more of Alex and more of an insight into the creation of this world in the respect of tying up the loose ends of the second series of Life on Mars. At any rate, if you're looking for more iconic Gene Hunt action then Ashes to Ashes won't disappoint. It's louder, bolder and less subtle than Life on Mars ever was, and here he's pretty much the main character. If you want to involve yourself in the story of Alex Drake and her highly emotional plight then you might have to overcome some serious flaws in the first three or four episodes, but believe me, it's probably worth it.