10 posts tagged “bbc one”

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.’

I hope Kiwi Lifers seeing the ninth episode of Life on Mars tonight for the first time enjoyed it. I did watch it again—yes, with the ads—and I didn’t mind the repeat, even if I could have chucked on the DVD. The acting was superb on every count, including that of guest star Marc Warren. Simm and Glenister were brilliant was always. Most of my commentary on the show was on IMDB, so it looks like I didn’t blog as much about the second series as I thought. Those messages, dating back to March 2007, have all disappeared, but I do remember being spooked out by the telephone call at the end from Hyde 2612.
   As to the image at the left, wait till episode five of this series.
   Strangely, the first promo I ever saw for the second series of Life on Mars was around 6.30 p.m.—two hours before the broadcast. If I hadn’t bought the DVD I would have been furious for the late under-promotion. I understand from the VO at the end of the episode that it replaced Without a Trace, and the American show was even advertised in some publications. The decision to air Life on Mars seems to have been a very late one, which explains why there was so little by way of promos.
   If only TV One promoted this prime-time show with the fervour that the BBC had—I even suggested a year ago that the old 1973 NZBC logo should come on before the programme, just as BBC One put on the early-1970s blue globe before its second-series Life on Mars episodes:

   If anyone caught the promo for next week’s episode, Emmy is misspelt by TV One staff as Emme. Let’s hope they catch it before more of this typo airs.

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!

Keeley Hawes gave an excellent performance in the final of Ashes to Ashes last night—best I’ve ever seen her in anything. And the story—wow (spoiler alert).
   I know some fans are dismissing it as “not as good as Life on Mars” but I say the series was redeemed in that one episode, penned by co-creator Ashley Pharoah.
   Because Ashes finally gave a good mindf*** that makes you now wonder if it’s all inside Alex’s head as ‘constructs’—or is it now her memory?
   That finalé, where it was Gene, not Evan, who takes young Alex’s hand, was a total surprise to me. Her Dad turning into the evil Pierrot clown—amazing. It is better than Sam finding out that his Dad could have killed Annie. It also becomes very apparent why the première’s director, Jonny Campbell, was called back to do this episode.
   Geoffrey Palmer’s guest role as the real-life Lord Scarman, the comic turn of Alex in the tank, the two sides of Gene, the two ages of Alex in the police station—all these were brilliant elements in an episode that finally sees all eight outings of Ashes to Ashes come together. Talk about nicely tied together in a story arc.
   I can now say, ‘I told you so,’ when I said that Alex’s predicament is different from Sam Tyler’s and that Gene, Ray and Chris exist in another timeline—which brings back the validity of Soozanne’s theory penned this time last year.
   We were promised more of the ‘Gene Hunt mythology’ from Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharoah—and we got it. Fantastic! Best episode ever.
   The scene is now well set for the second series, which, after this, should do incredibly well.

As predicted (though you hardly needed to be a psychic medium to do so), Ashes to Ashes will get a second series, The Daily Telegraph reported today. It might not get a third, even though the BBC has an option for it: star Philip Glenister was quoted as saying, ‘We’ll start shooting a second series sometime in August. They’ve got an option for up to a third series.
   ‘But you tend to get an instinct about when something should finish. And I certainly wouldn't want to drag it on and on.
   ‘The character’s too good for that. I care about the character too much.’
   I know I am reading too much into this but remember, during Life on Mars, Glenister was also the one who said that they didn’t people to begin thinking, ‘Do you remember when Life on Mars was good?’ That, and Simm’s family commitments, saw that series end after two seasons.
   Meanwhile, in the tabloids:

Any theories from our British friends on Ashes to Ashes? Last year, I was speculating like crazy on Sam Tyler’s predicament, telling people that if you freeze-framed a scene in series two, episode five where Sam touches Ray and sees different characters that DCI Frank Morgan was among them, and how there must be some spiritual reason beyond ‘He’s in a coma.’
   I have watched Ashes but not with the fervour and speculation of the earlier Life on Mars. I do believe Alex Drake’s situation is different, for starters, and that the opening speech that she is living one second in her life in 2008 is not far off the mark.
   But the idea that she has assimilated Sam’s fantasies doesn’t totally ring true to me.
   Last year, some people believed that Gene Hunt et al were spiritual figures or that the Geneverse is Purgatory, while a more complex theory put forward by one netizen, Soozanne, still “fits” (about two lives, one called Sam Tyler and another called Sam Williams and how their accidents forced the time travel).
   I would not be surprised if there is more than creators Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharoah are letting on—especially when they said the new series explores a bit more of the Gene Hunt ‘mythology’.
   Mythology? Reading too much into one word, or is this a clue?
   And if Pharoah has written the series finalé for Thursday with a potential second series in mind, will we actually get closure?
   I don’t think we will, though Alex confronts her parents’ death just as Sam confronted the disappearance of his father at the same point in Life on Mars. Sorry, everyone: I don’t think Alex Drake is going home. The calendar she has in her room, which we have been counting down, won’t mark the total number of days she has to stay in 1981.
   She’s likely to stay stuck in 1981 but finds that no matter what she does, she can’t create a time paradox—either because she is back in 1981 or her logical mind won’t allow it.
   That’s my prediction rather than a theory—largely on the premise that there probably will be a second series as the viewer numbers are healthy and not far off what Life on Mars was doing.

New Zealand is a year behind on Life on Mars, and I note from a TV One ad just now that Derren Brown’s Séance will air next week. I know we are necessarily behind the UK on British programmes, but I don’t remember us being this far behind since the 1970s. A three-year-old show? What is happening? Now with Cold Case, Without a Trace and other American shows on One, is this the end of the British influence on our networks?
   And people wonder why TVNZ as a whole is doing so poorly. It’s simply not delivering what people want. I can say that with some more authority, having been an insider.
   Incidentally, having left Good Morning, my theory has been proven right: my profile is up. The results are in: May saw eight press mentions across the company—up on 2006, but down on some months in 2003–5 where we were seeing something written about us at least daily. (The idea that appearing on TV regularly enhances your profile is, I can now say, bollocks.) It is reaching the levels (measured in column inches and mentions) it was at before I began on the show; indeed, we seem to be returning, as a company, to pre-2004 levels, before we made some bad hiring decisions. I do seem to have rid myself of the negative influences in my life—and Good Morning, and whatever sickness TVNZ has, were the last.
   I love being proved right—it was a good lesson, reminding myself to stick to my guns, remembering that sort of magic that helped us get an international clientèle to begin with, and exposing me to seeing a bad organization that wasn’t paying me to fix it. It’s not every day I have that opportunity: while I have seen ill organizations, I am usually called in after they have realized they need help. TVNZ has not got there yet and, in recent memory, is the only first-hand example I have of an organization I got to see over a period that wants to stay in its funk. It had more often been a management-textbook theory.
   As to my personal profile, I believe the slip in press mentions was due to an energy mismatch here at work in 2005–6 and the fact that appearing on Good Morning took me away from building my media appearances doing the things that mattered to me as a CEO. From a personal-brand standpoint, it was not authentic, to coin a phrase from Johnnie Moore. Not that that was the intent: I had been promised by the network that I could promote Lucire, most of all, through the show. That promise, as those of you who listened to my voice post last month, was not kept.
   Furthermore, I cannot see, with hindsight, how the ‘You’ve Got Male’ segment was a dignified forum for a company leader. I say this with respect to men like Paul Sinclair, with whom I regularly stay in contact.
   When I think of interviews I have had with CNN or the BBC, the show went against the image I had built up as a businessman.
   As each week passes, I feel more comfortable with my decision to leave Good Morning, and the positive consequences are coming up more frequently.
   My main regrets are endorsing the show to friends, getting caught up in it. I should have recommended that Laural and Sharaine Barrett not appear, though it was a good excuse to catch up in Wellington. Jennifer Hamilton of Avidiva reports no increase in profile, bookings or ‘Oh, I saw you on …’ since appearing on Good Morning.
   You may see me on C4 in mid-July (to be confirmed), and there may be some news that could net some television attention in late June–early July. The key is to not get sucked in to negative organizations or be around negative people as part of my routine—and if I have to appear on a TVNZ network, then it must be totally in line with my real job and personal mission.

I’ve interacted with a few Life on Mars fans over at the IMDB. Psyche-8, as (s)he calls him- or herself, came up with the following theory. It is far more complex than what writer Matthew Graham envisaged, but I prefer it to the “suicide is the way out” idea.
   Incidentally, I do not think I am spoiling this for our American friends. I believe that when David Kelley remakes Life on Mars, he will almost certainly have a different ending. It would be too easy for American fans of the new show to go to Google and read the finalé to the original.
   Psyche’s explanation actually makes more sense to me and solves the whole Sam Williams issue.

Right, I’m going to offer my two pennies worth to this debate and perhaps help to explain a few details. Here goes:

There are two Sams. One is a 37 year old man living in 1973 called Sam Williams. The other is a 37 year old man living in 2006 called Sam Tyler. 
   Both Sams have a great deal in common, so much so that you could say that they are living parallel lives albeit 33 years apart. There also bear an uncanny resemblance to one another. 
   DCI Sam Williams is a forward-thinking officer at Hyde police station in Manchester in 1973. When he was 12, he was involved in a coach crash which claimed the lives of both his parents and left him in a catatonic state for a while. He recovered, grew up and joined the police force. At the age of 37, he was offered the chance to go undercover as a DI, working to bring down the corrupt DCI Gene Hunt. He collaborated with his mentor, DCI Frank Morgan to come up with an alternate identity as Sam Tyler, a name he took from a grave stone near where his (Sam Williams’s) parents were buried, and he set off on his assignment.
   DCI Sam Tyler is a forward-thinking officer for Greater Manchester police in 2006. When he was 12, he was involved in a coach crash where he was injured but no-one else was seriously hurt. He recovered, grew up and joined the police force. At the age of 37, he was in the midst of a difficult case that he felt powerless to solve, and which culminated in the kidnapping of his girlfriend. Hating feeling so helpless, Sam found himself wishing that he could be somewhere where he could really make a difference.
   On the same day, at the same time, in the same place, exactly 33 years apart, both Sams were knocked down by a car. Sam Williams was killed instantly but Sam Tyler survived and ended up in a coma. However, because in that instant the separate timelines somehow overlapped, Sam Tyler’s spirit was transported across time and he woke up in Sam Williams’s body in 1973. Because of the fortunate coincidence of Sam Tyler’s name and Sam Williams’s assumed name, Sam Tyler from 2006 was able to seamlessly assume Sam Williams’s whole identity. Frank Morgan merely assumed that Sam Williams had successfully convinced everyone that he was Sam Tyler, little realising the truth and simply putting his strange behaviour down to amnesia from the crash. In the scene when he’s showing Sam the graves and telling him about his real existence as Sam Williams, there’s a very good reason why Sam has no memory of any of these events – because he’s a different person.
   However, while Sam Tyler’s body lay in a coma he was caught between the two timelines, hearing sounds and voices from 2006. He remained in this limbo-like state for a year and then finally woke up. When he did, he realised that he had a choice – to remain in 2006 or to return to 1973 where he could really make a difference. Because of the existence of Sam Williams in 1973, Sam Tyler had a ‘doorway’ to the past. He could go back, be Sam Williams for the rest of his life and no-one would be any the wiser. Thus, that was the choice he made and he knew that the only way he could go back and stay in 1973 permanently was to sever all links with 2006. Which is why he committed suicide. The body of Sam Tyler will eventually die. When that happens, Sam will be free. He'll stop hearing voices and be fully in 1973.
   So, what do you think? Good explanation?

   There’s a tinge of The Man Who Haunted Himself (the old Roger Moore movie) here.

PS.: Psyche-8 is a girl.