88 posts tagged “gene hunt”

That’s a surprise. The compose window only took minutes to load, rather than days. Miracles never cease.
   For your entertainment, two videos featuring a Q&A with Gene Hunt himself, Philip Glenister. The f words have been bleeped out, but they’re not words you’d expect the fictional DCI Hunt to use. And the real-life Philip Glenister doesn’t have very nice transport here. Where are the Cortina and Quattro?

There will be a third series of Ashes to Ashes, the BBC has confirmed, and with Philip Glenister—putting to rest once and for all that an English tabloid’s published “facts” to the contrary earlier this year were total bollocks. For now, I will say that I predict that the DVD of this second series will have very good sales.

I think the BBC may have been premature uploading photographs from next week’s Ashes to Ashes. Do not scroll down if you don’t want a spoiler. I’ve tried to put the most revealing pic at the bottom of this bunch.

Next week’s Ashes to Ashes in the UK:

   Nothing much stands out in this clip. I was hoping to see Morph (who makes an appearance). I still like the fact that Spanish Ray in La chica de ayer is called Raimundo.

I finally saw the first La chica de ayer (Spanish Life on Mars) after Antena 3 put the whole episode online. It plays out more closely to the UK original than the US remakes, with most of the scenes intact, albeit with some name changes (e.g. Maya is now Sonia; and the others, such as Quin Gallardo, the Spanish Gene Hunt, I have noted on this blog before). However, there are additional scenes and from what I can sense, the pilot is a bit longer than both the original and US remakes, at around 65 minutes excluding commercials.

   Our protagonist, Samuel Santos, has encounters with Sonia’s mother—remember that this remake is set in 1977, not 1973—and young Sonia herself in the pilot. He also confronts the murder suspect in his jail cell, in a scene which results in the suspect’s death after he takes Cristóbal hostage. (While Quin does not hit Samuel in their first scene, he does so here.) Additionally, Samuel goes back to where he first awoke in 1977—near a tunnel—and sees a light at the end of it. Running toward it (with an instrumental of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ as he does so—the song works just as well here as David Bowie’s ‘Life on Mars’), he thinks it’s the way back to 2009, only to discover it’s a couple having a snog in a car with its lights on. He sees a poster which features a man jumping off a building, and decides it’s a clue to help him wake up back in 2009. In the end, of course, Ana comes to the top of the building to convince Sam to stay (a scene which is in the original UK version and the Kelley pilot, but is saved till episode 16 of the aired American remake).
   This final act is a bit more drawn out, but the acting is very good and transcends—only just—the cheaper sets used in the Spanish remake. One area where La chica de ayer lags behind both the UK and US versions is the score, which sounds overly melodramatic.
   The show works well set in Madrid and the high-rises and motorways chosen in the 2009 parts contrast the 1977 setting far better than the equivalent scene in the original and US remakes. There’s also more of the Samuel–Ana relationship at the expense of the Samuel–Quin one, and there’s no sign of Ana’s boyfriend, current or former, here.
   My Spanish comprehension is terrible at best even though I can read the language a little, so please bear this in mind in my judgement of the acting. The show has done well in the eyes of the Spanish critics and from what I can see, it has been faithful to the source and has set things up very well.

Last week, actor Philip Glenister joined Twitter—and began conversing with the Tweeter called GeneHunt. Their dialogue makes for good reading, in a very weird way:

philipglenister: @GeneHunt Have a breath Mr Hunt. I'm not here to try and take over your manor, besides, I'm a lover, not a fighter.

A slightly odd Ashes to Ashes on Monday night. There are clues that Alex has been found by the emergency services and that a crash crew is two minutes away, furthering her first-series theory that she could literally be living seconds of her life while days whiz by in 1982.
   Last night, Matthew Graham’s script was good for some of the Gene Hunt lines, and the freemasonry parts were suitably spooky, but there was relatively little from the stalker that we saw in Ashley Pharoah’s first episode last week. I don’t have too much to add, other than the use of a Leyland Princess for the opening car chase, to which Gene utters, ‘Death of a Princess’—again tying in with the Lady Di boat in the first episode last year, and the many Princess Diana references last week (Pont de l’Alma, England’s rose, and 1982 TV footage). And why does Alex keep hearing a helicopter?

   Alex’s body in 2008 must be somewhere connected with Diana—maybe the pier is named for her? Anyone a bit more familiar with the Greenwich–Milwall area?
   Next week, the preview indicates that Morph will appear, in the same manner as the Camberwick Green parody in Life on Mars and Zippy and George last year. Roland the Rat is also scheduled for an appearance in this second series.
   The cast of Ashes to Ashes has been told the entire plot and Marshall Lancaster (whose role has been expanded this year—and I like this direction) has been quoted as saying it is far more complicated than we expect. I think we can presume that it’s “real” and not just in her head—Alex has somehow done a Quantum Leap into someone in 1982. Unlike Life on Mars, there are scenes without her, indicating that the characters have lives outside of her mind. But is there any spiritual meaning behind Gene Hunt?

I posted this last week but didn’t do a blog entry: a promo for the second series of Ashes to Ashes, which begins on the 21st at 9 p.m. on BBC One. It’s rather well made (it’s not from clips of the show, but especially filmed), and I didn’t recognize Chris (Marshall Lancaster) with his new hairdo!

Spoilers ahead on US Life on Mars.

If US Sam Tyler was in pod 2B in the finalé of the American Life on Mars remake, why was Ray Carling 2A when his apartment number was 4A, or is this one of those sci-fi nerd questions?
   As to the ‘gene hunt’ Ray Carling refers to, I came far closer to that than I thought in this November blog post!

Spoilers ahead. [PS.: in fact, if you scroll down and don’t want to know, be warned: there are humungous pictures from the last episode. So shut your eyes as you scroll.]
   Well, I was totally wrong about why American Sam Tyler got to 1973.
   But when they showed the scene of Sam waking up, I instantly figured it out what had happened and was right. I guess this particular outcome must have been at the back of my mind if I could see it all in a second. A few weeks ago, my father did say, ‘He better not have been dreaming for the whole series.’ Sorry, Dad.
   No, I didn’t think it was a good ending. At least not when compared with the original. I expected something much cleverer, more mythological.
   There were some cheeky aspects to it, with the ‘Special Guest Star: Lisa Bonet’ credit inserted just to keep us guessing—and because one of the producers let slip that Ms Bonet wouldn’t be in the finalé.
   But to have Sam Tyler—Spaceman—wake up in 2035 on a Mars mission, having lived in some virtual-reality world as part of the deep sleep needed for the long trip to the red planet, seemed a farce to me and a let-down. In fact, all I could do was laugh as the final few minutes unfolded. It was, let’s admit it, stupid.
   I imagine that if the series had gone on for another season and there were more “trip to Mars” clues, then it could have been more fulfilling. After 16 episodes, this wasn’t cool, and akin to Pam waking up in Dallas.

   It does explain why Gene Hunt is older and I kept calling him a father-figure, but for him to be ‘Major Tom’ Tyler was a surprise. Vic, it turns out, was the dark side of Sam.
   It’s still hard to process because most of those clues littered throughout the series meant very little—especially those that were quasi-religious.
   It seemed like it would explain more, with Sam arriving in Hyde—something a few of us speculated with the original series in 2007. It added to the mystery to learn that Sam was conceived there. Another good part was Rose Tyler (I still can’t get over this name) recognizing that ‘Det Skywalker’ is what she expected her son to grow up to be like. But so what? It all gets undone in the final scene.
   Highlight of the episode was Sam visiting an elderly Annie in 2010, a scene that some of us expected to see in the original as we speculated what had happened to the original Sam Tyler. That would have been brilliant as an outcome had Sam woken up in 2009. We also saw Sam and Annie finally kiss—a scene many of us waited for. But it’s all for nought: Sam doesn’t find 1973 more fulfilling and he and Annie wake up as colleagues on the mission, she having had no experience of falling in love with him.
   You get the feeling that it was a case of “all that work for nothing” and now that Col Annie Norris (‘I just pretend it’s far, far into the future, and they work for me’), Major Tom, Sam, Chris and Ray have got there, thanks to Frank Morgan at Mission Control and Windy the computer, the question remains: so what?
   The only consolation is the white shoe of Philip Glenister—well, Harvey Keitel, but in tribute to the original Gene Genie—reaching the red planet.