The end of Ashes to Ashes (BBC) - SPOILERS

[El Moose Monstero]

Did anyone watch it, in the end? I binged out on the last series on iplayer this weekend.

For those who didn't watch it, it turns out that they're all dead, and Gene Hunt is the Charon on the River Styx for the Policeman who die a troubled death, to ferry them on the afterlife, which it turns out is the Railway Arms from Life on Mars and Nelson is the equivalent of St. Peter. But none of them know it till the end, including Gene, who is the unknowing spirit of some young officer killed at the start of his career, when Alex works it out at the prodding of the unsubtle Satan character. All ends with Chris, Ray and Shaz going off to the Railway Arms, Alex being forced to realise that she actually died on the hospital bed at the end of last series, and that she has to go on to the pub as well, leaving Gene Hunt to continue his life, but now actually knowing that he is the gatekeeper to the afterlife.

I liked the basis of the idea in the context of this series alone, but not the implementation and I'm not sure the idea really works looking back to Life on Mars either. Definitely felt like they'd not really had this in mind from the beginning, which is odd, as the groundwork is there. Ultimately, I think their implementation raised more questions than it answered, and not in a good way, but if this third series had been a standalone one without Life on Mars or without series one or two, it would have been a nice little idea. Sadly, I don't feel like the detail of the ideas put forward worked in context with the rest of the series, although the overall idea of the LoM/AtA world as being a gateway to the afterlife is fine, and was established in LoM. I like the idea of Nelson being the actual gatekeeper and the pub at the end of the day being the doorway is also fine, as he was always the most perceptive character in LoM. If they'd actually had it still based in Manchester, having him still there as a concept would have worked, rather than him just coming back at the end.

The actual crime part of the series this season was also pretty predictable. I had the main bad guy of each episode and the rationale worked out in the first five or ten minutes, whilst in Life on Mars, the solutions were actually good and weren't always clearly labelled from day one. I can accept that they were trying to do shit with the overall plot rather than focusing on the episodes, but I think they could have done it all a bit more in the spirit of LoM without actually being as blatant about the whole thing and leaving us to draw our own conclusions.

Ultimately, Ashes to Ashes has been pretty shit most of the time, with far too much self referential crap going on and it certainly didn't deserve a third series based on the first two. They made up for it a little bit with the third series and the idea behind the way it ended, but they lose a lot of marks for a total lack of subtlety and for hammering it into us, and for screwing the corpse of Life on Mars some more. The latter managed to produce exactly the same afterlife message without actually screaming it at us and being all in your face about it.

Anyone else have any thoughts on the matter? I'm rambling.

[Crazedwraith]

Not seen it myself. I missed one episode of Ashes To Ashes (The one where Chris falls for an undercover girl who then gets done in by a crime boss) Then never really got going again this series.

This sounds like quite the mind fuck episode though. Not sure how much I like it. How does it fit in with last series' villain anyway? The older guy fucking with his past self... in Cop's purgatory?

And how come Sam and Alex remember 2006/2008 and the other deaders don't? If Sam went to the pub, why the deal with the car crash?

[El Moose Monstero]

Not seen it myself. I missed one episode of Ashes To Ashes (The one where Chris falls for an undercover girl who then gets done in by a crime boss) Then never really got going again this series.

This sounds like quite the mind fuck episode though. Not sure how much I like it. How does it fit in with last series' villain anyway? The older guy fucking with his past self... in Cop's purgatory?

And how come Sam and Alex remember 2006/2008 and the other deaders don't? If Sam went to the pub, why the deal with the car crash?

Quite so, these are my questions also. I'm putting on my bullshit interpretation hat, but my take on it was that they'd been there so long that they'd forgotten or had deliberately forgotten to just exist with Gene Hunt some more, sort of like how Sam did, choosing to exist in the world where things were more fun and their lives made more sense or were more worth while. They were ultimately only able to move on when they'd confronted the things which they killed themselves for in the first place, which only happened because Alex turned up. Gene was supposed to be helping them, but had forgotten his role and was also too busy enjoying being the sheriff. I think Shaz was a more recent convert than either of the other two, Ray died in 1953, Chris I'm not sure, but I think Shaz died in the last 20 years or so judging by the scene and the music playing at the time (Oasis, morning glory), so I guess like Sam, they'd got comfortable living in the between world. Sam asked Gene to help him fake his own death, so the car crash wasn't real, and I assume that Sam then went to the pub and passed on. They didn't explain that bit really. For all the time they spent invoking Sam Tyler, very little of it was actually about him. I'm not sure it works with LoM, as I said, I think it works fine as an idea for this series, though the implementation was crap, but I don't think the idea can be applied back to LoM, as Sam actually chooses death after coming back. Unless he'd got into the world accidentally first time round, and then chose to stay after that but could only leave when he'd realised that he couldn't stay there forever.

[Big Orange]

I find that Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes are largely about the interplay between Gene Hunt and his partner from the future (Tyler and Drake), with rest being interesting 70s/80s period details, great soundtrack, and snappy dialogue. Even the crime cases were largely formulaic and comparatively pedestrian. The sci-fi/fantasy element to it has always been pretty floppy, contradictory, and vague from the onset, making the entire franchise seem like a Chrysler Building made out of silver playing cards glued together. Looks nice but flimsy.

Keats ended up being a drooling twat, most likely a dead copper himself, trying to cheat "the system" (or was a representative of Hell) but I liked how his bizarre tantrum in the police station made the ceiling flicker off like a hologram, revealing a starfield. I also liked the segment when Shaz saw herself murdered on duty in the mid to late 1990s. Life on Mars ended a little too soon, with John Simm doing a Eccelston and jumping ship suddenly, hence Ashes to Ashes with Keeley Hawes instead - the first season was a bit shaky but Ashes got better in the last two seasons, with the franchise coming to a appropriate closure (revealing Gene Hunt's true nature) and ending at the right time. A shit show is either Bonekickers, Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire, the first season of Merlin, or Demons.

[Crazedwraith]

Another thought about this ending and why it doesn't make a lick of sense: Gene Hunt rescuing little Alex in the series 1 finale. It's heavily implied in that episode that that was supposed to have happened in the real world.

[Big Orange]

The implication of time-travel has always been the elephant in the room for LoM/AtA - Sam Tyler interacted with his pre-school self as well and he had dealings with criminals in the 1970s that had an impact on the future.

[El Moose Monstero]

The implication of time-travel has always been the elephant in the room for LoM/AtA - Sam Tyler interacted with his pre-school self as well and he had dealings with criminals in the 1970s that had an impact on the future.

Or did he imagine those criminals based on the fact that he'd encountered them in the future and so placed them back for him to run into in the past, particularly as in all cases there was an external stimuli to drive the event - Sam's mum telling him he had until 2 o clock to live, the whistling and tormenting of the villain. It's a false reality, so it can be warped to match any facts in his subconscious. With respect to Alex, I always took the fact that Gene was there to save her, particularly as he then said 'I go where I'm needed', as a fairly heavy reference to the fact that he was some sort of guiding angel in the afterlife. In the real world, it was Owen who saved her, in fact, didn't Alex actually say 'you weren't there, how could you be there?' just prior to my above quote.

I thought that Keats was a pretty unsubtle Satan reference, particularly with the fact that his officer's club was in the basement, offering them all the things they wanted, and by the fact that at the very end, he's basically rasping away like some sort of monster and cackling. I think in order for him to have access to the death videos, he has to have been more than just another dead copper, he has to have been something more like Nelson's role, an actual gatekeeper, but obviously to Hell. I'm not sure the whole business really stands up to scrutiny to be quite honest.

I call Ashes to Ashes shit, or perhaps very mediocre, because it basically is a self indulgent show that wasn't needed and did nothing that Life on Mars didn't do better and as a sequel, I think it has to stand up to the original. I don't say that as a major Life on Mars fanboy or anything, but Life on Mars was never about Gene Hunt, it was about, as BO says, the interplay between the two and that worked really well. Ashes to Ashes, possibly because they wanted it to be about all of the characters, lost something as a result of focusing away from just one character. Also there were a few too many bits which were just self indulgent crap - the whole 'up town girl' scene for example, I acknowledge that there were some scenes like that in LoM, but there was never the Gene Hunt wank or the 'oh hoh, isn't this a comedy scene' that marred AtA. I would also disagree that LoM's crimes were pedestrian and formulaic - I had my housemate watch them, who has devoured CSI and most other crime shows, she can divine whodunnit with five or ten minutes usually, and she got a good majority of LoM wrong. In contrast, me, as someone who doesn't watch crime shows much, guessed every one of the solutions from this most recent season, which to me seems like pretty poor show.

[Spekio]

I am a big fan of LoM. There are a lot of plot-holes (where the fuck went Sam's GF after she was kidnapped? She just breaks off with him while he is in a coma in Second Series, WTF?) and I felt the ending was rushed but it was a fun and intriguing concept. (Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time?)
I loved how in the end he chose a makeshift world because (now?) reality was dull, and all his life seemed like going trought the motions without second tought - And maybe, just maybe, he interacted with his past self. Gene Hunt was an interesting character, but, as previously stated, it was more the dinamic between Gene and Sam that made him great.

Ashes to Ashes could have been good. It could be about DI Drake, unable to deal with her real world, seeking scapism is one of her case analysis while she was dying, I don't know. Instead we got Gene wankery piled up on Gene wankery.
It raised a few flags when the first action scene was played for fucking laughs, and after First Series, I just lost interest.
For me, not only was it uninspired, it was unecessary - we all knew Sam was dying at the end of LoM, and he would enjoy his last minutes with the girl of his dreams and the best friends he could muster.

[Big Orange]

I certainly didn't think the prison riot episode was played for laughs at all and was done better than a similar episode that CSI: NY had. At the same time I don't think Ashes to Ashes not being devoid of laughs was a real deficiency.

I was also scratching my head about the brief "Uptown Girl" segment, it didn't really have any bearing on the proceedings, although I don't think Ashes to Ashes steered too much away from the character of Gene Hunt or was devoid of mystery at all (I too have seen many seasons of CSI, CSI: NY, and NCIS) since the zombie copper and hidden body being revealed as the real Gene Hunt came as a genuine surprise to me (as did the other police officers being dead themselves as well). And in a recent episode of NCIS, I was right about a suspect from the opening ten minutes. In Life on Mars, in a couple of episodes I can vaguely remember, I knew there was something fishy about the Spoiler

paedophile dad and murdering football fan before they were revealed as the culprits.

I wouldn't say Ashes to Ashes was a failure, putting things into proper perspective - it drew comfortably to a close and tied things up better than the heavily battered, creaking Heroes ever likely will, and it didn't collapse under its narrative weight and get killed off early like FlashForward did. It fared better in Life of Mars' wake than the American's attempt at Life on Mars featuring Harvey Keitel, who seems pretty bad, despite his memorable roles in Bad Lieutenant and Reservoir Dogs (the US remake sunk after a comparatively brief 17 episode run). Also Ashes to Ashes had a big enough impact on popular culture to have Gene Hunt's Quattro feature in major advertising campaingns launched by the Labour and Conservative parties.

Ashes to Ashes' biggest blow was John Simm never coming back in person, although I loved the reveal about Nelson and The Railway Arms, although if I had it my way I'd have Gene Hunt "ascend" instead along with Ray (both getting outmoded in their afterlife roles), leaving Alex Drake and Sam Tyler to take their place. I didn't like how Keats turned out in the last ten minutes and ultimately revealed as an irritating strawman easily shoved aside, but I enjoyed Daniel Mays' performance (Ralph Brown from LoM, who featured in Alien 3 and The Phantom Menace, was likely playing a similar person).

[El Moose Monstero]

Personally, I don't think your comparisons are the 'proper perspective'. I think you're comparing it to the wrong things. Comparing it to Heroes, Flash Forward etc, series which are intended to be sustained with multiple series with 22 odd episodes per show, rather than to the BBC style 6 or 8 part miniseries clearly makes for very different programs. Of course it's going to be more compact and draw to a close better than the longer series, there isn't 5 series worth of filler and 'we need a random cliffhanger' moments to explain away and since the shows are made before they're aired, there's time to plan a full plot out rather than to respond to ratings as you go along. (I'll accept correction on that if that isn't how the above series have been made)

You could argue that with 24 episodes in total, AtA was a complete US series, but I think the first series, which was very much still in the Life on Mars style compared to the other two, is almost a seperate effort. We still had the TV character interaction (George and Zippy, for example), we had the 'family issue to be resolved', and it was mostly delivered from Alex's perspective, or from Gene Hunt's. The other two series were almost an entirely different idea and if the third series had been modified a bit, merged with the second series somewhat and rejiggered, I think it would have been fine as a stand alone series.

I'm not denying, as I know how much you love ratings, that AtA had an audience and was a presumably successful piece of Friday night television. I actually don't know what the ratings were and don't really care. What I am arguing is that as a follow up to LoM, it is a failure or at least, a disappointment, due to irrelevant comedy scenes, gratuitious Gene Hunt useage, trying to focus on too many characters and poorly implemented ideas. As I said above, I enjoyed the idea but the implementation didn't work and I don't think gels with what happened in Life on Mars. If they wanted to tell the 2-3 series story, that should have been done from the start and they needed to think it out more. I'd need to watch LoM and AtA all back to back to really get a solid opinion on how what would have been necessary to connect them and keep the overarching plot. I don't think the two are incompatible, but there'd need to be more reveal about Sam's life after the end of LoM from the beginning. Ask me again in 6 months time when the DVDs are all out or before that if I find someone with a VCR.

I personally thought the appearance of Nelson and the Railway Arms was a perfect example of my point above. The idea that all good police jobs end in the pub was nice, and the character of Nelson works well in the role of gatekeeper, but it came out of nowhere and seemed contrived as a result. Seriously, Luigi randomly wins the lottery, and here's Nelson magically appearing without any previous reference at all. It was pointless self referential nonsense in the same vein as the end of Enterprise. Sam Tyler being mentioned repeatedly is fine, and was set up from day one, but because they needed a certain ending, Nelson gets dropped in during the last episode with barely a prior mention. If they'd wanted to keep Nelson and the Railway Arms, they should have kept it in Manchester, and to be honest, I'm not sure that there were many plots in Ashes to Ashes that couldn't have been done just as well by staying up north. They didn't even need to keep the pub open, it could have been just sitting closed, boarded up, with Nelson just living above it as a tired old man - it would have been a metaphor for how Gene had forgotten his actual purpose, and then it could have reopened at the end as Gene remembers and as everyone passes on.

---

Also, as an additional, we're often at the opposite ends on review subjects, which is fine - but if I do ever come across as a bit more hostile than might be warranted, then I do apologise, it is in part because things like this...

I wouldn't say Ashes to Ashes was a failure, putting things into proper perspective - it drew comfortably to a close and tied things up better than the heavily battered, creaking Heroes ever likely will, and it didn't collapse under its narrative weight and get killed off early like FlashForward did. It fared better in Life of Mars' wake than the American's attempt at Life on Mars featuring Harvey Keitel, who seems pretty bad, despite his memorable roles in Bad Lieutenant and Reservoir Dogs (the US remake sunk after a comparatively brief 17 episode run). Also Ashes to Ashes had a big enough impact on popular culture to have Gene Hunt's Quattro feature in major advertising campaingns launched by the Labour and Conservative parties.

...I find irritating. I may not be the best person to criticise, as I can be a little florid myself, but you have a point to make in there, and we have to wade through a load of extraneous and irrelevant information to get to it. We don't need to know who starred in whatever or how critically acclaimed something is or what bizarre adjectives you're using to prove to us that you've seen and have an opinion on Heroes or Flash Forward. You're making a perfectly legitimate point in the discussion which stands well on its own, you don't need to dress it up in extra words and adjectives to sound clever.

[Oberleutnant]

Beautiful and appropriate ending - even if series three was bit of a disappointment compared to the other two. I never really liked in Keats' character or saw a need for him. He was introduced all of a sudden, his only purpose to be a satanical (literally) Hunt's nemesis. The show and ending would've worked just fine without him.

Police work storylines were never really that important in Ashes to Ashes. Totally forgettable stuff. Most important to me were the excellent characters and their interaction was always the highpoint, and I think this was a great send off for them. Philip Glenister's acting in the finale was some of the best I've seen a while, when Hunt was utterly lost and vulnerable after the revelation of his true identity.

Now I need to start watching LoM. Never got around to do it.

[Stark]

I find that Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes are largely about the interplay between Gene Hunt and his partner from the future (Tyler and Drake), with rest being interesting 70s/80s period details, great soundtrack, and snappy dialogue. Even the crime cases were largely formulaic and comparatively pedestrian. The sci-fi/fantasy element to it has always been pretty floppy, contradictory, and vague from the onset, making the entire franchise seem like a Chrysler Building made out of silver playing cards glued together. Looks nice but flimsy.

Explain how. LoM is pretty simple, and is hardly a 'floppy contradictory house of cards'. Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it's wrong. That you think the show involves time travel makes you a complete moron.

EDIT - Okay, sorry, I didn't realise this was a thread for the sort of person who calls someone breaking up with a coma victim a 'plot hole'.

[Spekio]

She gets kidnapped on the first episode. Then she only shows up to break up with Sam on second series to free him for Annie.
What happened to her kidnapper? How did she survive, him being a serial killer and all?

[Stark]

I don't think you know what 'plot hole' means.

[Spekio]

A plot hole, or plothole, is a gap or inconsistency in a storyline that goes against the flow of logic established by the story's plot, or constitutes a blatant omission of relevant information regarding the plot.

by wikipedia.

[Stark]

Except a) the identity and fate of the serial killer is irrelevant and b) 'you've been in a coma for two years and I'm moving on with my life' isn't a blatant omission of information?

What you mean is you don't like it because YOU think it's important.

[Spekio]

Don't strawman me.
Me liking it or dislinking it matters not. Also, it's not the fact that she left Sam, that in itself is not a plothole. She moved on, it's okay. I have no problem with that.
The plot hole is how we got to that situation.
We know the identity of the kidnapper, hell, it's the plot of the first episode. It seemed pretty important to figure out who the killer was because she had little time to live. We didn't even get anyone saying to Present!Sam that she was rescued. Then we never hear of her again. Sure, she was superfulous, and I can't even remember her name, but still.

[Crazedwraith]

It was Maya.

And It's not a plot hole. We just have to decided that without Sam there. The future Manchester Met. were competent enough to find her. It is their job after all.

[Spekio]

Sure, we can assume so. Still, blatant omission of relevant information regarding the plot.

[Stark]

How is it relevant? Maya is basically irrelevant to the story, which is why she does nothing in season 1 and shows up to leave in season 2.

PROTIP: the story might be about how Sam's sterile, emotionless life in the real world doesn't fulfil him the way his 1973 fantasy does.

[Spekio]

I am a big fan of LoM. There are a lot of plot-holes (where the fuck went Sam's GF after she was kidnapped? She just breaks off with him while he is in a coma in Second Series, WTF?) and I felt the ending was rushed but it was a fun and intriguing concept. (Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time?)
I loved how in the end he chose a makeshift world because (now?) reality was dull, and all his life seemed like going trought the motions without second tought - And maybe, just maybe, he interacted with his past self. Gene Hunt was an interesting character, but, as previously stated, it was more the dinamic between Gene and Sam that made him great.

Oh wow, thanks for teaching me something I said on my first post on this thread. You truly have bested me.

[Stark]

OK, are you seriously saying ANYTHING the show doesn't tell you is a 'plot hole'? The show doesn't tell us what happens to Sam's car, either. PLOT HOLE! How did the police building in 2008 get renovated? PLOT HOLE!

I'm glad you can demonstrate how Maya's fate is at all relevant, though. Well done.

[Spekio]

OK, are you seriously saying ANYTHING the show doesn't tell you is a 'plot hole'? The show doesn't tell us what happens to Sam's car, either. PLOT HOLE! How did the police building in 2008 get renovated? PLOT HOLE!

Again, Strawmanning?

I'm glad you can demonstrate how Maya's fate is at all relevant, though. Well done.

Maya's kidnapping indirectly sends Sam to 1973. The protagonist's girlfriend who gets a entire episode's plot - the first episode, actually - devoted to how her life is in danger, and gets no conclusion at all suddenly shows up with no explanation given and its not a plot hole?
Had she not showed up would actually work better towards Sam's decision, I might add.

[Stark]

Uh, except there's nothing he can do about it because he's in a coma. Should they have had the Police Briefing Episode where he's wheeled in to listen to a detailed explanation of how the plot-irrelevant events unfolded?

[Spekio]

How is it plot-irrelevant? They devoted an episode for her kidnapping. Leaving it open ended let us believe she died.