33 posts tagged “ashes to ashes”

Just been brought to my attention: your own downloadable Gene Genie cellphone illustration!

http://www.voeveo.com/images/wallpaper/81694

It’s Ashes to Ashes Gene rather than Life on Mars Gene. And, fortunately, not US Life on Mars Capt Gene Hunt of the LAPD.
   I should also note that Voeveo is a Wellington, New Zealand-based company (as all the great internationals should be), one that has done well globally in spite of our government.

Ashes to Ashes will be coming to New Zealand, according to the BBC. Though by the time it is on, I probably will have bought the DVD of the second series from Amazon UK. It will be on Prime, which either means no one will watch it, or it will become a destination hit as the Beeb’s Top Gear and Doctor Who have. I wonder if there are enough Lifers here since most mainstream viewers in 2007 went to watch Ugly Betty instead of Life on Mars, but if marketed with Doctor Who it might work.
   It would be nice to see Ashes here in New Zealand in the same year rather than having to wait a year as we did with TV One, maybe a little after Life on Mars finishes.
   Other concluded deals for series are listed in a press release sent to Scoop.

TV Scoop has some hints about the next series of Ashes to Ashes, to début February 2009 on BBC One: ‘We’ve just handed in episode one. It’s set in 1982, so the Falklands have just happened. We’re taking it slightly darker this time …’ Read the rest of the quotation from co-creator Ashley Pharoah at TV Scoop. This does mean the VO at the beginning of the show has to change, as Keeley Hawes currently makes a reference to 1981.
   Whatever the case, it’s going far more smoothly than the US Life on Mars—which the Los Angeles Times reported on back in early June (and this blog followed on June 5). The British press only caught up with the news this past week but it did reveal one extra tidbit that we didn’t already know: Matthew Graham said in The Guardian, ‘At the time we thought [US pilot writer and executive producer David E. Kelley] took what we said on board, but I don’t think he did in the end. I think they should go further away from us; otherwise the danger is you look like an imitation.’

[Cross-posted] A very established New Zealand designer, Margarita Robertson of Nom D, and a newer label, Fly Guys, are profiled on the Lucire site this week. Sam Mitchell’s Q&A with Margi is probably the most in-depth that has ever been published. And we’re running another ex-print piece: my interview with Design Museum senior curator Donna Loveday, who curated When Philip Met Isabella, the exhibition about milliner Philip Treacy and his designs for the late Tatler editor Isabella Blow. That was one of those interviews that went very smoothly, since Donna and I share tastes in modernism and music. Beyond Treacy and Blow, she has rubbed shoulders with designers such as Pablo Ferro and the daughter of Robert Brownjohn, Eliza—and, on a more trivial note, she banks at the same place as Ashes to Ashes’ Philip Glenister—TV’s Gene Hunt. I hope you enjoy this trio of articles.

Although I am a long-time Vox user (even a beta tester), this is the first time I have tried embedding something into a post. If it works, then enjoy!

The first time I read about Philip Glenister getting his driver off for speeding (35 mph in a 30 mph zone) I chuckled, as he adopted his Gene Hunt persona. The cop saw the actor and said, according to Glenister, ‘I’m terribly sorry about this sir, I’ll let you off this time if you don’t mind.’
   Glenister had apparently said to him prior, ‘Yes, I’m the one on the booze, not him. Go and catch some proper criminals.’
   Then I found the earliest article on the incident in the Daily Mail tabloid which contrasted this with others in the UK:

   Earlier this week it emerged that Sydney Duffy was fined for doing 35mph in a 30mph area when he tried to leave the road quickly as his wife had an epileptic fit. The 63-year-old has appealed against the fine from Cumbria police and will appear in court.
   And Stephanie Cornwall was issued with a £60 fine after rushing to hospital when her six year-old son Alfie was mauled by a dog. The mother, 40, from Leicestershire, was travelling at 37mph in a 30mph zone.

   One law for celebrities?
   The Met should have more sense than to fine people like Mr Duffy and Ms Cornwall.
   At least here the traffic cops allow for some speedometer error and that humans cannot be expected to constantly monitor their speed when traffic safety is at issue. If you kept staring at your speedo, you might get involved in an accident!
   It is worse here in New Zealand than it was 30 years ago but by and large, 5 mph is not something for the cops to get that upset about.
   I know there are exceptions but I am talking in a general sense. As we work in metric, 5 mph is roughly 8 km/h.
   The second incident probably would have been frowned on more today, less so 30 years ago: 7 mph goes past that 10 km/h leeway that some cops have as a rule of thumb.
   I tend to drive at the legal limit but realize that due to speedometer error I can be anywhere between 5 km/h over or under.
   The ‘Your speed is’ digital signs around some parts of New Zealand are helpful as a means of calibrating my own speedometer—so why do so many of them have their displays closed?
   They tend to show that my car’s 50 km/h is actually 47 km/h so I tend to go closer to 55 km/h on my speedo.
   The problem is that speeding here is governed by legislation that brings strict liability, which basically means “no excuses”.
   But I would think a Kiwi copper would have been able to judge in both cases somewhat better than his or her British counterpart.
   I am not sure if we would distinguish between celebrities and everyday folk. Any stories? I know of one incident told to me by an eyewitness (the passenger) where a rich driver was let off because of the car he drove, and the officers wound up going into macho mode to discuss the vehicle and neglected to issue a fine for excessive speeding. I cannot reveal more since I am not permitted to, and I would hope it is exceptional rather than commonplace.
   If a flash car could get me off a fine, I would have really opened up the Astons and Porsche 911 I have driven, but I prefer my clean licence (knock on wood) and was much more careful.

Ian Wylie at the Manchester Evening News, a big Ashes to Ashes fan, has info on the second series—and there may even be a third.
   Highlights from his blog:

ASHES To Ashes is set to get slightly darker in series two, on the road to unveiling greater mysteries. …

2) Matthew: “Then we started talking about what we call our three year plan, which is if, all things being equal, we can run Ashes To Ashes – if we have a series two – if we can run it beyond series two to series three, as is our hope, we can actually unveil a bigger mystery, a bigger plan. And ultimately reveal a lot more about the characters.”

3) Matthew: “The first series of Ashes To Ashes was more about laying the ground rules again, and just kind of having fun and getting people into the ’81 groove. And then we’ll start playing out the bigger mysteries.” …

14) Matthew: “We changed the mystery in Ashes To Ashes for series one, in that we made it about what the clown represented and what the clown was, and we played a twist with the clown. Because what we wanted to do was play with the idea of someone who thought they knew exactly what was going on, and establish all of that, because we thought that the audience knew exactly what was going on. So we thought, ‘Let’s have a character who is the audience, who has seen Life On Mars and knows what’s happening.’ And then, as I say, refer to the three year plan. The next phase of the three year plan is to undermine that, so that you realise you don’t know what’s going on, and nor does Alex. So it was a bit of a gamble, but we kind of thought we’d get away with that a little bit in the first series because we wanted it to be fun. And we wanted to establish a different tone. And if we’d put a big esoteric mystery into Ashes To Ashes – I mean, I think we’ve got a fairly big mystery. She’s pursued by death, who turns out to be her father. That’s pretty esoteric. But if we’d gone even further with that, I think it would have felt that we were just replaying Life On Mars.” …

28) The American version of Life On Mars. Ashley: “It’s being re-made by a guy called David E Kelley, who is a hero of both of ours – so we went out to Los Angeles to meet him. He was very charming. And, no, we’re having nothing to do with it. We’ve seen a script and it’s…interesting.” …

   So: I am excited about Ashes in 2009 and a little worried about the new Life on Mars in the US—though still hopeful that the two Irish lads who are the new Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt will give it a bit of gravitas.

Ian Wylie, one of the journalists championing Ashes to Ashes, points out on his blog that a fan called Wibble refers to the figure on the lower left of the mural in Luigi’s trattoria. Spooky as heck.

 

Ashes to Ashes’ final-episode viewing numbers were down, sadly, though the series average was still high enough for the BBC to commission a second series.
   They are logically down on Life on Mars because viewers didn’t expect there to be any surprises on Alex Drake’s predicament this time round. (Boy, did we get a big surprise.)
   I believe as word of the final filters out—that Alex Drake’s situation is different from Sam Tyler’s and raises the possibility that Gene Hunt and his team are real—the second series might do slightly better, especially its final.
   Reports are coming in that Ashes “only” scored 5·4 million viewers, still a healthy 23 per cent share, though it is down from the 7 million of the première.
   Compared with Life on Mars, this isn’t too bad given that people thought (and the producers allowed us to think) that there was less novelty to the premise.
   Some figures may help put this into perspective:

• Life on Mars’ first series average: 6·8 million
• Life on Mars’ first series final: 7·1 million

but:

• Life on Mars’ second series début: 5·7 million—despite heavy promotion and YouTube trailers
• Life on Mars’ second series, third episode: 4·8 million
• Ashes to Ashes’ first series début: 7 million
• Ashes to Ashes’ first series, second episode: 6·1 million
• Ashes to Ashes’ first series, fifth episode: 6·6 million

   While the final’s viewing numbers are poorer than episodes during the preceding seven weeks, the series has averaged well and now that there is an apparent twist, those who watched Life on Mars for a mindbender might just tune in to the second series of Ashes to Ashes. The BBC made the right call to renew.

Some of the best lines from the whole series were in Ashes to Ashes’ finalé:

Gene: ‘Is it just me, or are you talking in another dimension?’
Gene: ‘I can grow a moustache but I draw a line at a perm.’
Viv: ‘Pickpocket, a drunk, a guy who thinks he’s Sheena Easton. Same old, same old.’
Gene: ‘I’ve seen your rump, and I’ve seen more padding strapped to Ian Botham’s legs.’

and these only work in the context of the show:

Gene: ‘Bye, little lady. Any problems, you just call the Gene Genie.’
Gene: ‘I’m everywhere, Bolly. I was needed and I was there.’
Shaz: ‘I’m good, thanks to you, a guardian angel.’

   Final line was ‘Luigi, get me a beer,’ which takes me back to the same point in Life on Mars (final line, ‘Pub’).
   Well done Ashley Pharoah!