Ashes to Ashes, my thoughts.
I watched Ashes to Ashes over the course of two days. Thanks to mon cousin for the eps, muchly appreciated.
I wasn't expecting anything one way or the other apart from a lot of 80's hair and makeup (and got it in spades, hahaha) and a trip down memory lane. I had no expectations of Alex, but overall, I really enjoyed the show. I didn't like it better or worse than Life on Mars, because it isn't, imo, trying to be LoM. I enjoyed it for what it was, being the next chapter in the story of cops who travel in time.
Which leads me to…da da duuuuuum….meta! And spec, so beneath the cut for you.
So, the ending didn't shock or surprise me like the LoM ones did. I didn't know at that point that there will be a S2 of A2A, but I'm pleased there will be. I will say that although the end didn't surprise me, I thought the actress playing Alex gave that final scene with the explosion so much emotion and made it so visceral it was completely believable and I totally bought her emotions in that scene.
The 80s, dear god in heaven, now I remember why I try to keep so much of them out of my mind! Blue eyeshadow, yeah, had that, perms (didn't have those, I have naturally curly hair!), Alex's hair style, oh yeah, I had that. The high heels in horrible cherry red, yep, had those. The leather jacket, yep had and still do have that, though mine is black. Big earrings, oh yeah, had those. Loads of bling, yep. Poseur goth club dancing moves, ahahaha oh fuck yes. Poseur goth club wear, yep, that too. (I can't be the only child of the 80s who squeed when they saw it really was Steve Strange on stage in the club where Visage were playing, can I?)
All the songs they used, only needed to hear a few bars and I could tell you which song, who by, what album, what year it was released and whether I have it on cassette tape or vinyl record and if I have the extended 12" single remix hahahaha. Oh god, I feel so old.
I liked the whole show. There wasn't anything I found particularly bad (apart from the fashion!) and I liked Alex a lot, particularly how she kept addressing them all as constructs from her memory and how her going out to have sex was clearly rebelling against the part of the ID devoted to the mother. I laughed myself sick at that, b.c yeah, been there in some form or other as far as rebellion goes.
There were some parallels between A2A and LoM, obviously. For one, both Sam and Alex go back to a time when they lose a parent, for Sam it's his dad and for Alex it's both of them. For both of them, this is a chance to find some answers, sometimes being blinkered in their quest to the detriment of Gene and the team. Both of them 'betray' Gene at one point and both of them seek forgiveness for that later. Both of them try desperately to save their parents, both fail but both contribute unintentionally to the fate of their families by their attempts at salvation.
But why do they both end up working in a team led by Gene? (Even though Gene is fucking awesome.) What is it that leads them both to him? They both work for the same branch of the police in 2007/8. Sam goes back to Manchester where he grew up; Alex goes back to London where Gene has been transferred. Coincidence? Not in this 'verse, I'm thinking. One clever clogs said that both of them are on a gene hunt. As this is essentially true, the search for the truth about their parents and fits Gene's name, nothing ever being a coincidence, I thought that was just a bloody awesome interpretation.
When Alex gets to the Met, Ray tells her that Sam died in Manchester, his car drove into the river during a car chase but the body was never found. Gene has various news cuttings about Sam on his office wall. This little line gave me a lot to think about. As we know at the end of S2 of LoM, Sam commits suicide rather than stay in 2007. He wants to go back to 1973 because 2007 isn't the life he wants. So he jumps off a building. Now, I'm no medic, but the impact from that would definitely cause a severe head trauma. He was hit by a car, putting him in a coma in the first series, also a severe head trauma. Alex is shot in the head, severe head trauma.
Here is my theory. In the Gene!verse, time moves faster than it does in our world. However long it took for Sam to reach brain death is the tiny window in which he lives in 1973 in Manchester, right up to 1980 and said car accident. So, the point at which he dies in the Gene!verse is the point at which his soul (for want of a better term) reaches peace and he can let go of both 2007 and the Gene!verse and be at peace with himself and his choices. Alex is still stuck in 1981, and stuff about S2 says she'll be in 1982. So she's still, in 2008, in that moment between the severe head trauma and brain death. We know from S1 that there were moments that Sam was slipping from his coma into death. We don't know if he reached brain death, but considering he came back from the Gene!verse and woke up in 2007, I'm guessing he didn't.
So that, in my head, explains the time they each spend in the Gene!verse. But it doesn't explain why, exactly, they are in that part of the Gene!verse. They're both police officers, true, different fields, but police work is what they know. They are both devoted to the job, they *are* the job. So it makes sense that for a world in which they could function in order to find the answers they both seek is that of the police force of the time they go back to seeking those answers. It would make no sense for Sam, DI, to go back to 1973 to run the local chippy, for instance. It would be out of his field of comfort. Likewise, if Alex went back to 1981 and wound up in the local pub pulling pints, it would have no meaning for her at all.
Who then, is Gene Hunt? I honestly have no idea beyond the clever gene hunt that Alex and Sam both went on. Could he be a version of St. Michael, the patron saint of police? I dunno. I did consider that for a bit, but I'm not too convinced on that one. Is it part of the whole 'once the genie is out of the bottle, it can't be put back in', because he (and his men) call himself the Gene Genie? And who exactly is Layton talking to on the phone when he shoots Alex on the barge? How is he tied to Sam? (I read a theory that he was the one driving the car that ran Sam down, which is a possibility as we never find out who that was or if they were caught.)
So many questions. I have loads of them. Like, what is the Artemis Project, what's the deal with Evan, etc. I am very much looking forward to S2.
I wasn't expecting anything one way or the other apart from a lot of 80's hair and makeup (and got it in spades, hahaha) and a trip down memory lane. I had no expectations of Alex, but overall, I really enjoyed the show. I didn't like it better or worse than Life on Mars, because it isn't, imo, trying to be LoM. I enjoyed it for what it was, being the next chapter in the story of cops who travel in time.
Which leads me to…da da duuuuuum….meta! And spec, so beneath the cut for you.
So, the ending didn't shock or surprise me like the LoM ones did. I didn't know at that point that there will be a S2 of A2A, but I'm pleased there will be. I will say that although the end didn't surprise me, I thought the actress playing Alex gave that final scene with the explosion so much emotion and made it so visceral it was completely believable and I totally bought her emotions in that scene.
The 80s, dear god in heaven, now I remember why I try to keep so much of them out of my mind! Blue eyeshadow, yeah, had that, perms (didn't have those, I have naturally curly hair!), Alex's hair style, oh yeah, I had that. The high heels in horrible cherry red, yep, had those. The leather jacket, yep had and still do have that, though mine is black. Big earrings, oh yeah, had those. Loads of bling, yep. Poseur goth club dancing moves, ahahaha oh fuck yes. Poseur goth club wear, yep, that too. (I can't be the only child of the 80s who squeed when they saw it really was Steve Strange on stage in the club where Visage were playing, can I?)
All the songs they used, only needed to hear a few bars and I could tell you which song, who by, what album, what year it was released and whether I have it on cassette tape or vinyl record and if I have the extended 12" single remix hahahaha. Oh god, I feel so old.
I liked the whole show. There wasn't anything I found particularly bad (apart from the fashion!) and I liked Alex a lot, particularly how she kept addressing them all as constructs from her memory and how her going out to have sex was clearly rebelling against the part of the ID devoted to the mother. I laughed myself sick at that, b.c yeah, been there in some form or other as far as rebellion goes.
There were some parallels between A2A and LoM, obviously. For one, both Sam and Alex go back to a time when they lose a parent, for Sam it's his dad and for Alex it's both of them. For both of them, this is a chance to find some answers, sometimes being blinkered in their quest to the detriment of Gene and the team. Both of them 'betray' Gene at one point and both of them seek forgiveness for that later. Both of them try desperately to save their parents, both fail but both contribute unintentionally to the fate of their families by their attempts at salvation.
But why do they both end up working in a team led by Gene? (Even though Gene is fucking awesome.) What is it that leads them both to him? They both work for the same branch of the police in 2007/8. Sam goes back to Manchester where he grew up; Alex goes back to London where Gene has been transferred. Coincidence? Not in this 'verse, I'm thinking. One clever clogs said that both of them are on a gene hunt. As this is essentially true, the search for the truth about their parents and fits Gene's name, nothing ever being a coincidence, I thought that was just a bloody awesome interpretation.
When Alex gets to the Met, Ray tells her that Sam died in Manchester, his car drove into the river during a car chase but the body was never found. Gene has various news cuttings about Sam on his office wall. This little line gave me a lot to think about. As we know at the end of S2 of LoM, Sam commits suicide rather than stay in 2007. He wants to go back to 1973 because 2007 isn't the life he wants. So he jumps off a building. Now, I'm no medic, but the impact from that would definitely cause a severe head trauma. He was hit by a car, putting him in a coma in the first series, also a severe head trauma. Alex is shot in the head, severe head trauma.
Here is my theory. In the Gene!verse, time moves faster than it does in our world. However long it took for Sam to reach brain death is the tiny window in which he lives in 1973 in Manchester, right up to 1980 and said car accident. So, the point at which he dies in the Gene!verse is the point at which his soul (for want of a better term) reaches peace and he can let go of both 2007 and the Gene!verse and be at peace with himself and his choices. Alex is still stuck in 1981, and stuff about S2 says she'll be in 1982. So she's still, in 2008, in that moment between the severe head trauma and brain death. We know from S1 that there were moments that Sam was slipping from his coma into death. We don't know if he reached brain death, but considering he came back from the Gene!verse and woke up in 2007, I'm guessing he didn't.
So that, in my head, explains the time they each spend in the Gene!verse. But it doesn't explain why, exactly, they are in that part of the Gene!verse. They're both police officers, true, different fields, but police work is what they know. They are both devoted to the job, they *are* the job. So it makes sense that for a world in which they could function in order to find the answers they both seek is that of the police force of the time they go back to seeking those answers. It would make no sense for Sam, DI, to go back to 1973 to run the local chippy, for instance. It would be out of his field of comfort. Likewise, if Alex went back to 1981 and wound up in the local pub pulling pints, it would have no meaning for her at all.
Who then, is Gene Hunt? I honestly have no idea beyond the clever gene hunt that Alex and Sam both went on. Could he be a version of St. Michael, the patron saint of police? I dunno. I did consider that for a bit, but I'm not too convinced on that one. Is it part of the whole 'once the genie is out of the bottle, it can't be put back in', because he (and his men) call himself the Gene Genie? And who exactly is Layton talking to on the phone when he shoots Alex on the barge? How is he tied to Sam? (I read a theory that he was the one driving the car that ran Sam down, which is a possibility as we never find out who that was or if they were caught.)
So many questions. I have loads of them. Like, what is the Artemis Project, what's the deal with Evan, etc. I am very much looking forward to S2.