Ashes to Ashes

Ashes to Ashes is the sequel to Life on Mars. DI Alex Drake, a police detective trained in psychology, is shot by an ex-criminal and wakes up in 1981. She works under DCI Gene Hunt at Fenchurch CID in London, and the series keeps it ambiguous whether she is dead or alive in 2008. Drake has studied Sam Tyler’s reports of his time in 1973, so she recognises Hunt, DS Ray Carling and DC Chris Skelton, who have all moved from Manchester to the capital. She treats the 1980s world as a construct of her own injured mind and keeps trying to analyse her way home to her daughter, Molly. Gene Hunt, meanwhile, swaps his Ford Cortina for a red Audi Quattro and his northern certainties for the excesses of Thatcher’s London.

There were three series of eight 60-minute episodes. Series 1 is set in 1981, series 2 in 1982 during the Falklands War, and series 3 in 1983. Real events of each year form the backdrop, including the royal wedding of Charles and Diana, the redevelopment of the London Docklands and the Scarman inquiry. The series combines police procedural and fantasy, pairs Drake’s modern, psychological approach to policing with Hunt’s fists-first methods, and is soaked in 1980s music and fashion. The third series turns the story inward, as DCI Jim Keats of Discipline and Complaints investigates Hunt and the mystery of what Hunt’s world really is. The finale reveals that the world is a limbo for “restless dead” police officers, with Hunt guiding them on to the Railway Arms, and its closing scene mirrors the first episode of Life on Mars

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