Ashes to Ashes
The British show Life on Mars was an award winning series centered on a modern-day cop, Sam Tyler, who wakes up in the year 1973 after being struck by a car. It was so successful that an American remake was commissioned for ABC (the remake received mixed reviews and was cancelled in its first season), and a spin-off was created for the BBC, premiering this month in BBC America. This spin-off, Ashes to Ashes (both series take their titles from David Bowie songs), stars Keeley Hawes as DI Alex Drake, a detective with intensive training in psychoanalysis, who is transported back to 1981 after being shot in 2008. Drake had been studying Tyler’s case, and she is shocked to meet the same men that Tyler encountered during his time in the 70s. She begins to suspect that she is in a coma (as Tyler was during the original series), hallucinating about the case, and not actually travelling through time. Taking tips from Tyler’s notes, she tries to fix radios and other devices to receive messages and clues about her actual condition in the 21st century.
Both series combine the overriding cop genre with a sci-fi/fantasy twist, the ambiguity behind the time travel. Are the protagonists insane, in a coma, or did they actually travel through time? Will their actions in the past affect the reality in the future? If they are in a coma, will they wake up? There are aspects of horror as well, as Alex is haunted almost daily by a sinister clown from the David Bowie “Ashes to Ashes” video, who seems to have answers regarding her condition. Though life for Sam Tyler must have been difficult during his trip to the 70s (I didn’t watch the original show or its American remake), a situation of this kind must be infinitely more difficult for Alex, a woman trying to prove her worth in a 1981 police force. Besides her gender, her background in and reliance on psychology alienate her from the rest of the force. She has a desperate need to get back to the job and the life she left behind, a life that includes her small daughter.
The ensemble of the show is excellent, especially the returning characters from Life on Mars, who have aged and grown in the years since Tyler’s trip back in time. Dean Andrews returns as Ray Carling, a racist, sexist detective on the force, who is resentful of Alex Drake’s command. Marshall Lancaster also is back as Chris Skelton, Sam Tyler’s friend, who has grown in confidence and nerve since we last saw him in the 70s. Finally, there is the phenomenal Philip Glenister as Chief Inspector Gene Hunt, a man wise enough to know that Alex’s skills can come in handy, though he is also tied to the old way of doing things; he’s like a dinosaur who knows the end is coming for his kind, but who refuses to go without a fight. These men aren’t stereotypes, and their points-of-view, though very different from Drake’s, are not dismissed out of hand. In the leading role, Keeley Hawes is strong in that she is confident in her skills and her logic, and vulnerable in knowing that she is very much out of place and out of her comfort zone in this era.
In addition to a beautiful recreation of the 80s, and a rocking soundtrack (just like its predecessor), Ashes to Ashes is full of suspense and social observations regarding Margaret Thatcher’s England. The stakes are high for Alex Drake, especially in her role as a single mother, making the show feel very urgent. Hopefully, Ashes to Ashes will be embraced stateside, despite the failure of the Life on Mars remake.
The premiere episode of Ashes to Ashes will be re-broadcast this Saturday on BBC America.
-Artemis
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