What are your thoughts on Ashes To Ashes? I think it's a shameless cash-in on the hunger for nostalgia. The Eighties are the latest let's laugh at the silly things they did/said/wore/listened to decade but take that out of the equation and it's a very boring police comedy drama.
I didn't much like the last series but I tried again with this one and it's all wrong. The look is wrong, the plots are silly, the Gene Genie schtick is tired beyond belief - Philip Glenister clearly thinks he's created a monster he'll never be able to shake off, and most importantly (to me) the music is wrong - Human League's Mirror Man was not released until the end of 82, and this is set at the outbreak of the Falklands War. Lazy research! People notice these things. Well I do anyway.
1982 seems like the blink of an eye away to me. Perhaps I'm not ready to see it as 'the past' yet. That said, I'll no doubt tune in next week.
What do you think?
9 comments:
I agree completely. What a load of tosh and yes, very poor research with regard to the music and indeed the fashion. Definitely won't be watching again.
I was a Life on Mars denier at first but came to love it on the BBC4 repeats a couple of summers ago. Truth be told I never had much hope for AtA from the off. And what a turkey it proved to be, I gave up after episode three of series one.
Perhaps thy should have moved LoM forward to 1976/1977, if they wanted to 'keep the brand going'.
I've never rated any of these retromania rehashes - they're always over-styled like a theme pub..
It's like pop culture has run out of ideas and is constantly re-heating the recent past by way of clip shows, musicals 'inspired by' and remakes of classic films..
If I do dip in, I'm always left wanting to watch something from the original time..
PS are you tempted to pop any T Rex on your wedding setlist - Jeepster, Get It On, Ride A White Swan?
I could take or leave most of the first series of Ashes, but the ongoing "what's going on here?" story hints were enough to keep me going, and I thought the way it all panned out in the last episode was really excellent. So I'm in it again for series 2, but with the caveat that I don't expect much to actually happen until the end. (And the end may yet be disappointing, of course.)
The slight anachronisms don't bother me, mainly because my memories are too hazy to identify them as such.
I tried White Swan but as much as I love it it wasn't really doing it for me. Jeepster and Get it On are nearly five minutes long, and that's too long.
I'm sure the creators will state that the "mistakes" are generally deliberate and due to the world we see on screen being created from Alex's own distorted memories of the times.
I enjoyed it, even if that does put me in the minority here.
I stopped watching during the very first episode where folk were in the Miami Vice pastels even though the show didn't start in the US until late 1984.
It was funny seeing the BBC proudly trail this second series last week, directly after episodes of The Wire. They might have well said it was on CBBC.
No, can't be doing with this. The trailer looked absolutely desperate. What are they going to do next, put Philip Glenister in a plaid shirt with 'Nevermind' playing in the background, so they can 'do' the Nineties?
So that's settled then.
It's shit.
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