Fire up the Quattro!

I wonder how many bloggers today around the UK are eulogising over Ashes to Ashes on BBC1 last night. We had a ball watching it - the music was fab, the clothes were hilarious (who really wore skirts quite that short in 1981? Mind you I was 8, so still in T-bar sandals from Start-Rite) and Gene Hunt a proper pastiche of his Life on Mars version - un-PC-ness turned up to 11.

Having said that, I've just read quite a damning review of it in the Guardian which has somewhat dampened my rosy memories of Gene, Ray and Chris brandishing machine guns, hair blowing in the wind as they tear down the Thames on a motor boat to rescue Keeley Hawes. I shouldn't let myself be so influenced by Guardian critics really but I kind of agreed with him in some places, after all, the plot, such as it was, was ludicrous. Didn't stop us having a great hour on the sofa laughing at the obvious jokes though, same as the ludicrous plots don't stop us watching Spooks. The only thing I hope improves over the series is the drippy WPC 'Shaz' who is in no way a replacement for Annie from Life on Mars. Life on Mars was altogether a more credible drama series - grubbier (especially Sam's bedsit which always looked as if it was coated with years of chip grease and nicotine and crawling with bugs) and grittier and actually seeming more authentic. Sam was also, lest we forget, a proper DI, with real experience, whereas Alex Drake is a criminal psychologist pretending to be a DI, which seems a bit unethical to me. So Ashes to Ashes is really a Gene Hunt spin off series to showcase the wonderful Philip Glenister - but none the less enjoyable for that.