Monday 20 April 2009

Ashes To Ashes

Back tonight.

There should be a series in which Gene Hunt is transported to 2009 and put in charge of investigating political corruption. After which Bowie album could it be named, and why?

All right, so Ashes To Ashes is not as good as Life On Mars. And moving Gene Hunt to London wasn't a very good idea, even if he really would have been addressed as "Guv" rather than "Boss" there, the one really grating thing about Life On Mars. But the last series certainly had its moments, even if it was set in a sort of generic Eighties - there were no yuppies as early as 1981.

In one episode, the destruction of skilled work, and the demolition of the homes of those who performed it, was accurately portrayed as "Thatcher and Heseltine succeeding where the Luftwaffe failed". Who won the War in the end, eh? No wonder that Gene Hunt was visibly sympathetic. Time was when both parties were united in supporting high-skilled, high-wage jobs and high-quality, affordable housing, as well as by a common allegiance to the Crown, the Commonwealth, the churches, the Police and wider criminal justice system, the Armed Forces, and so forth.

2 comments:

  1. I have never quite understood the obsession with Life on Mars.
    The police being routinely lionised are in fact the same police who "policed" the Miners Strike, Wapping etc.
    No oubt with all these "touchy feely" police programmes (The Bill) there is a need for an insecure viewing public to get a fix of good ole fashioned cop shows when Reagan and Carter (the Sweeney not the US Presidents) could give villains a good hiding.

    ReplyDelete
  2. But it was in 1973.

    The police and the miners, print workers, &c were still on the same side. Same streets, same schools, married to each other's wives' sisters, and so on.

    This second series of Ashes To Ashes may show the emerging tensions, though.

    ReplyDelete