the Red Quattro (I aspired to one of these once)
I think in some ways you are missing the point. As they did with LoM, certain aspects are allowed (meant?) to be anachronistic as it is meant to the creation of Alex Drake's mind. The music in both series was always a little 'flexible'.It always amazes me how little research is done on this programme: they constantly get minor details wrong.
Tonight they had a character say he was at Stamford Bridge watching Chelsea - with 30,000 witnesses. In 1981/82 season, Chelsea were in Div 2 with an average gate of 13,132 - that would have been easy to check.
I think some of you take it all a bit too seriously. I've got hundreds of channels to choose from but most evenings I can't find anything to watch.
Ashes To Ashes is an hour of pure escapism. I think Gene Hunt is a brilliant character, I couldn't care less if Keeley Hawes can act or not. I like looking at her. The stories are weak as a cop show but they are meant to be part of a bigger story. I enjoy the nostalgia, the clothes and the music. Who gives a monkeys if Gene's Audi wasn't in production in 1982 or Chelsea only averaged 13,000 that season.
Could someone please explain to me the story behind A2A as I'd never wached it before?
They don't get things wrong. From the start of Life On Mars they've had anachronistic things in there deliberately
OK, here goes..
Keeley hawes is a Detective Sergeant in the present day who is shot in the head during an arrest. As she lies dying/bleeding on the ground she suddenly finds herself transported back to 1982 where she is working with DI Gene Hunt a proper 1970's /early 80's mysogynist cop and his squad of equally unenlightend detectives.
She has full recollection of who she really is and is constantly applying modern policing techniques like forensics and intelligence as well as challenging the rampant sexism and corruption in the force of Yesteryear. Personally I would be running around placing bets on Grand national races yet to be run and FA cup final results but she never seems to bother with that.
She has told DI Hunt that she believes that he and his world are figments of her wounded mind but he just retorts that she is a "Daft Bint" and tells her to get on with nicking villains.
She has weird flashbacks as her modern day self is discovered and treated by paramedics etc, these odd visions and sounds are often relayed to her by TV shows (Grange Hill last night) and occaisionally intrude into her 1982 life, she also is desperate to "wake up" back in the here and now where her daughter is waiting for her to recover.
It's a clever way of combining social commentary, nostalgia and "what if" telly.
The sub-plot this time around is that there is someone else in 1982 who knows who she is and when she is from and is sending her messages and trying to unsettle her by letting her know that he too is from the future (last night he sent her a message saying Pont de Alma in relation to Princess Diana..obviously only someone from a future 1997 would know about that.
Its notable as much for the antics of DI Hunt as for anything else and makes frequent reference to a pre-PC world that many miss.
Think that is a spin on, We have been lazy and not done our research properly.
Thought it was a bit unlikely how Alex brazenly wandered up to that gunman who was taking potshots from the balcony, then just stood there bold as brass in front of him to talk him round while he's brandishing a rifle.
And yes we know Hunt is a tough, uncompromisingly brash hard-man, but the way he was harangueing and abusing that widow from the moment she'd just been informed of her husbands death was a bit odd as well, being as it wasn't immediately apparent she was hiding something.
Othwerwise, it was ok. It does suffer from being half the show LOM was, but its still an oasis of quality and relief after the unbearable shitstorm of EE.
I think the fact that the Alex character takes risks like walking up to gunmen unarmed is supposed to illustrate that because she is in a fantasy world she cant really "die" there, or maybe she wants to to help her wake up in 2009.