TV Blog: Easter special!
It’s been a sci-fi double whammy for BBC One this Easter as two of its flagship shows returned over the holiday weekend.
Good Friday saw the welcome return of 80’s time-warp cop show Ashes to Ashes, back for its final series. A spin-off from Life on Mars, the programme follows present day policewoman Alex Drake who finds herself trapped in the early 80’s, having to work in a misogynistic police force under thuggish DCI Gene Hunt. The series is built around the same premise as Mars – that the world Alex inhabits may be a hallucination from which she must escape by following cryptic messages bleeding through from the 21st century.
Ashes to Ashes has terrific fun mining the conventions of old school police shows while contrasting our politically correct era with the Britain of thirty years ago. The fact that we are in the midst of a full blown 80’s revival lends extra glamour to the fashions and soundtrack, making the programme seem both current and retro at once. This final run of episodes (which promises to wrap up the lingering mysteries from both Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes) gets started in a terrifically confident manner, promising one heck of a final resolution. I don’t know what you do at the weekends but the next seven Friday evenings are 80’s night round at mine.
While Ashes to Ashes featured Alex returning to the waking world, Easter Saturday’s episode of Doctor Who saw an even more literal resurrection as the 11th version of the time traveller debuted in his first proper adventure and Matt Smith replaced David Tennant at the helm of the show. Not only has The Doctor got a new face but the whole series has been rebranded with fresh opening titles, theme music and even a new TARDIS – all signalling the backroom changeover from head writer Russell T. Davies to his replacement, Coupling scribe Steven Moffat. Doctor Who has been by far the BBC’s most successful drama of the past five years so any changes to the formula will be tracked closely.
Pleasingly, apart from a dodgy reimagining of the theme tune, the pieces fall into place seamlessly. The show has been given a more gothic, fairytale quality while retaining its mix of joie de vivre, scares and humour. It also benefits from a little more narrative complexity: episode one mixed The Lion, The Witch and The Wardobe with The Time Traveller’s Wife as new companion Amy (played wonderfully by Scot Karen Gillan) meets the new Doctor at different points in her life.
Most importantly Smith shines in the lead role – instantly at home in the role and managing to feel simultaneously like the same man and a brand new one. While audiences have gotten used to Tennant’s take on the character, any reluctance to move on will be quashed within two minutes of having Smith offer you “all of time and space, everything that ever happened or ever will – where do you want to start?!” A very assured beginning for the series and one suggesting even bolder stories to come.
Get back to the 80’s with Ashes to Ashes on the iplayer.
Travel backwards and forwards in time with Doctor Who, also on the iplayer.