So, I bought the complete Ashes To Ashes on DVD at the BBC shop yesterday.

There's a quote on the front that says "Ashes To Ashes is better than Life On Mars" from some newspaper critic or other, and before you've even peeled off the cellophane you're thinking "Yeah, chinny reck-on."

I've only watched the first episode so far, but is it fuck anywhere near as good as Life On Mars. I don't like the Keeley Hawes character, I don't like the way she's already completely au fait with the premise of being in a coma-dream like Sam Tyler was, I don't like her cut-glass accent, and I don't like her fucking Edith Blytonesque daughter.

I'll persist with it because I've paid £24.99 and cos I'm partly-voluntarily stuck in the Eigh-teeees myself and because Mrs Rhino has got a crush on Gene Hunt, but I foresee a lot of irritation.

SR in "agreeing with OTF consensus" shock.

(Try not to spoiler me if you reply to this, btw.)

SPOILER It gets worse.

SPOILER Keeley Hawes gets worse.

SPOILER - Best line from the Gene Genie;
'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, TWAT!'

Apart from this, it's nothing more than a rush job to cash in on the popularity of Life on Mars.

SPOILER- You'll get to the end of the third episode, then you'll have had enough and will try and recoup some of your money by flogging the DVD on Ebay.

Why did you buy it after everybody on here said it was absolute shite?

Er, because I'm a crazy wild renegade with a mind of his own who doesn't follow the herd.

Everyone also said series 2 of Life On Mars was absolute shite, and they were wrong.

Nah, it was shite. Your reasons for liking it collapsed under scrutiny and are now invalid.

Wow.

Not being totally serious there.

So, basically it seems like they're playing Gene Hunt purely for cheap laughs now, and he's mutated into a 12-rated goodie rather than the more complex character of LOM.

And Keeley Hawes is a terrible bit of casting. Really difficult to like, or care about.

You see, I don't think Ashes To Ashes had to be rubbish. It would be easy (at least for me, if not for The Horse, to pick an obvious example) to turn a blind eye to the weird logic of another cop going into a coma and visiting the same world as Sam Tyler did, if it was done with the class of Life On Mars. But it wasn't. Simple as that.

I'll plough on with it because I enjoy (or at least enjoyed) the Gene Hunt character, but I actually can't wait for it to end. Which I never thought I'd say about a series set in London 1981.

The thing is, though, it's not just me being Mr Logic - they keep reminding you of the bad premise. They keep having tedious interludes where she remembers getting shot and sees visions of her daughter, and they keep having grindingly crap lines where she references things in the future, or refers to her situation and her knowledge of it. I mean, it might be even weirder if they didn't, I dunno - telling you that it was all a dream before you've even begun is just a bad premise, way worse even than LoM series two. Everything else would have to be incredibly well done to overcome it. As it was, it was incredibly badly done.

Tell you what, I've just watched episode 2 - the one with the Royal Wedding and the Docklands redevelopment - and I have to say it's quite an improvement on episode 1. Even if they did totally recycle the "lefty father and lefty son covering for each other" storyline from the textiles factory episode of Life On Mars.

Very odd to see Moxy from Auf Wiedersehen, Pet playing a Cockney, and even odder to see Sonia from I'm Alan Partridge playing a posh feminist lawyer.

I enjoyed the scene in the Blitz club (and I know some of the extras on the dancefloor), and I liked the bit with The Pop Group...

Spotty Anarchist Kid: "I just like the music!"
(Hunt plays a snatch of "We Are All Prostitutes" on cassette, then stops it.)
Hunt: "Now we know you're a liar."

If you could tolerate episode 2, you might actually quite like the rest of the series. If it's the one I'm thinking of, it had some really rancid politics in it, and I thought the Blitz stuff was laughable; it struck me as one of the poorer episodes. There's actually a decent attempt to inject some darkness and mystery as the series goes on, although the silliness and the Daily-Mailiness become more entrenched also.

But Keeley Hawes does get more aggravating every week, and Hunt becomes more and more of a caricature. The only bit I can remember really liking from the whole series was the last five minutes of one episode where they played "Ghosts" by Japan over the closing credits, but it says a lot that I've completely forgotten what it actually was that I liked, whereas I can think of ten really shit bits off the top of my head.

Compare with "Life On Mars", which was teeming with memorable moments, even if some of the stuff inbetween didn't quite come off. I was thinking earlier today of the scene where Sam's in the restaurant in 1973 and freaks out when "Disco 2000" by Pulp comes on the radio, and had to stop for a second to think "fuck me, what a startling and enjoyable few seconds of TV that was." I honestly can't think of a single scene from A2A that has stuck in my head like that - and I watched almost all of them (my social life wasn't too packed at the time).

Watch out for Hunt vs Lord Scarman, though. It's like the dodginess of the last scene of LoM put into words. Made me sick, and that's speaking as someone with far more strident views on law and order than most lefty layabouts.

Also, as an Eighties connoisseur, don't you think they've made a bit of a pig's ear of recreating the feel of the decade? Certainly it looks nothing like 1981 (which wasn't too far removed from 1973, apart from the haircuts). This 1981 is like a half-remembered copy of The Face from about 1985, complete with anachronistic yuppies and... yeah yeah, it's all in Alex Drake's head, whatever. Just seems a shame.

Something else that tickles me is how cool so many of these cops are. It made me laugh that DCI Sam Tyler of Manchester CID was a huge fan of Pulp, and when stuck in 1973 took the opportunity to go and see Roxy Music with Annie (yeah, loads of coppers were into "For Your Pleasure"). Never mind the fact that, when driving around thinking his girlfriend's just been got by a serial killer, he decides to listen to "Hunky Dory" on his iPod.

But by "Ashes To Ashes", the whole cop shop looks like a 1984 episode of "Top Of The Pops". You can forgive the silly character of Shaz, because there probably were a few trendy young girls working for the police at the time, but Gene Hunt in his black suit and white tie? Take a look at the news footage of the Yorkshire Ripper hunt: that's what senior coppers looked like in 1981. It's not even like Hunt was always a flashy dresser - in 1973 he looked like someone in a pub in Salford (in fact, most of the time he probably was). It just shows off how camp and tacky "Ashes To Ashes" really is, and how by this point, the folk in charge were basically taking the piss. It's no wonder the plots, and indeed the whole story arc, seem so half-baked. One of the great things about LOM was the attention to detail on (almost) every level, whereas A2A was very obviously churned-out by people coasting on their success.