So now we know the crucial question to ask about Ashes to Ashes, thinks Mark Warman: is Gene Hunt supposed to be God? That was surely the implication of one of his last lines in the closing episode of the first series. "I'm everywhere," he said after coming unexpectedly to Alex Drake's side in her hour of need. "I was needed and I was there." James Walton had two slightly more prosaic enquiries on his mind as the closing episode unfurled last night. First, would the delectable DI Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes) make it back to the 21st century from her nightmarish entrapment in 1981? And secondly, would the sexual tension that has been ratcheting up inexorably between her and DCI Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) finally find an outlet, or at least some form of limited release?
In light of the fact that the BBC has already commissioned a second series, it was probably inevitable that the answer to the latter questions would be a resounding no. Indeed, the only real surprise in last night’s episode was just how little was resolved by it. And how little impact it appeared to have on the usually highly emotional Drake. Sure, she got upset (producing two of the most ear-piercing screams in TV history) when she failed to prevent that much-heralded car bomb, and discovered that it was her beloved father who was – suicidally – responsible for the explosion. But the fact that the cracking of this central conundrum didn’t affect her own psychological incarceration in the past hardly seemed to matter to her. In the end she was left much as she had begun eight weeks ago, slurping Chianti with the lads in Luigi’s and emptily promising that she wouldn’t give up the fight to find her way home.
This kind of emotional inconsistency has been the biggest flaw in Drake, as a character, throughout the series. It’s a problem that never afflicted her Life on Mars predecessor, Sam Tyler (John Simm). Tyler’s enigmatic story was the pivot around which everything else turned. In Ashes to Ashes, though, Drake has often seemed a mere adjunct to the ongoing comic adventures of Gene Hunt and his motley crew of cartoonish pre-PC coppers. It is a form of schizophrenia that has affected the series at every level, this desire to have it all – to juggle high drama with broad humour, to blend the absurd with the intense. And it hasn’t made for a comfortable mix. Last night’s spurious sub-plot about Lord Scarman’s station visit, for instance, inevitably undermined the momentum of Drake’s race against time to save her parents.
Undoubtedly, Ashes to Ashes was a crushing disappointment, perhaps the biggest slap to a drooling, expectant audience since The Matrix Reloaded suggests Mike Anderiesz. It's what , in fact, made last night's episode an unexpected delight - tightly constructed, expertly directed, and as clever a use of CGI trickery as the small screen has seen. Which begs the question of whether this particular shark has miraculously been un-jumped, promising a second series that could yet elevate it to classic status.
Admittedly, the show had a serious mountain to climb after the first five or so episodes. With its relentless and obtrusive 80s soundtrack, gaping plot holes and Keeley Hawes as a particularly screechy, annoying heroine, it seemed everything that was slick and subtle about Life on Mars had been undone by a script that played it for easy in-jokes and a predictable but unlikely romance between Gene Hunt and "Bolly Knickers".
And yet in the finale, most of the unanswered questions were dealt with in particularly satisfying fashion. Why didn't Alex Drake simply confront her parents with knowledge of their impending doom, surely worth a try you'd think? What was the purpose of the clown, other than an obvious and overplayed reference to Bowie's legendary pop video? And above all, when was the Jean Genie going to exert the real influence over his department we always knew he had? Luckily, pride was restored in a defiant showdown with Lord Scarman (played with customary relish by Geoffrey Palmer) that had both the station, and I suspect half the audience, on their feet.
OK, the plot played a few trump cards we had no reason to suspect the writers had up their sleeves. Without giving anything away, by keeping the real murderer hidden for most of the series it was easy to assume it was one of two obvious suspects. However, the final revelation was still expertly achieved, making this perhaps a more impressive series finale than Life on Mars' first. It may not be enough to restore parity between the two - Mars remains a better acted, plotted and executed show by a significant margin, but at least it raises hope that unexplored strands will yet come together in series two.
Will Drake get home in time for her horrible stage-school daughter's birthday? Will Gene eventually turn on her? Above all, will anyone remember that although Sam Tyler is supposed to be dead, his body was never actually found? For me, it's the thought of John Simm crawling through the wreckage to explain everything that makes the second series a genuinely tempting prospect. Which is why, despite my complaints, as the end credits rolled and Hunt and Drake raised a glass to the supremely nostalgic strains of Supertramp’s Take the Long Way Home, I am still looking forward to next year.
