Ashes to Ashes: The Finale

Wrapping up a TV series is a difficult thing to do - particularly when you have a central mystery at the heart of your show, and many of your fans will have already formed their own theories about what is going on. You have to tread a fine line between keeping those fans happy and also offering them something new, as well as keeping everything credible enough for the casual viewer. This was the challenge facing the final episode of Ashes to Ashes - and it also needed to do justice not just to the world of Alex Drake, but also lay to rest Life On Mars and give a respectable end to a character who has become a veritable TV icon - Gene Hunt.

And did the series finale of Ashes to Ashes manage not only to do all of the above, but also manage to do it well? The only possible answer, as far as I am concerned, is "hell, yeah!"

Oh, and there will be spoilers. A lot of them. If you haven't seen the finale, I'd go away and watch it now before you read on.

Overall, I'd say that the finale succeeded far better than I thought it could. I'd always found the ending to Life On Mars to be a little bit jarring - Sam struggles for 15.5 episodes to get home, then manages it, only to find it a bit boring so he jumps off a roof. It didn't quite ring true to the character of Sam. Plus, the beginning of Ashes to Ashes - and in particular, the debut episode - struggled to really work. The stories felt like an over-the-top parody of Life On Mars, and Alex Drake's additional knowledge of the world in which she found herself meant that she struggled (by her own admission in the last episode) to take her situation seriously. And if your protagonist can't take your premise seriously, then you're going to have to work extra hard to get your viewer to take it seriously as well.

But Ashes to Ashes got much better as it went along, giving back stories and therefore a certain gravitas to the more minor characters, and weaving in subtle hints (such as Shaz's anger over who left a screwdriver on her desk in an early episode of Series Three) of what was to come. In the end, the final episode felt like a convincing denouement for the series. More than that, it felt like the authors had always had this ending in mind. As a result, they had the time to make that episode absolutely convincing, when it could have just been exposition to round everything off. Or even just plain bollocks.

There were several very spooky moments in the final episode. Keats trying to tempt Chris, Shaz and Ray into the lift was one of them - particularly when they heard the muffled screams from below. The scenes where the trio also saw their own deaths on video worked very well - in particular, Ray's death managed to be brutal, unsettling, and oddly moving all at the same time. But for me, the spookiest moment was in the rundown old house in the countryside, dirty and still decked out with Union Jacks from the Coronation, where Gene Hunt remembered his own death*, and felt his world crashing in on him.

The episode was poignant too. Perhaps the most moving scenes were given to Alex and Gene. Alex's realisation that she had died was a heart-breaking moment, particularly as she knew that this meant that she would never see her daughter again. It was also a brave move by the programme makers - rather than giving us a cop-out ending and having Drake recovering from a bullet to the brain, they showed that her struggle across three seasons was ultimately pointless. She had to bow to the inevitable. And Gene's refusal to let her stay, even though they had clearly fallen in love, compounded the heartache of their final moments together. Gene was left alone as his colleagues all moved into the bright light of the pub.

But fortunately the series managed to give an emotional departure to Gene's team, but didn't end on a sad note. The final moments, with Gene realising that he had a new detective who'd just arrived in limbo from the future, was a knowing nod to how the series began and hinting that there would always be new cases, and new foils, for the Gene Genie to deal with.

And there were other nods to the past for fans to clock. There was the faint reflection of Sam Tyler in the glass door to Hunt's office at one point. I also liked Keats' jibe about the world of Ashes to Ashes not being how the police actually work; it was a nod to those who've criticised the heavily fictionalised police procedures of the show, but at the same time it was the producers blowing a raspberry at those critics and saying "well, of course it wasn't realistic. It was never meant to be. This isn't reality, stupid." But for me, the most effective nod to the past was the reappearance of the Railway Arms, complete with St Peter Nelson. Nelson had always seemed to know more that he would admit to in Life On Mars - something that was never fully explored. So the fact that he was the one welcoming people from limbo into the afterlife was a nice touch that enhanced Nelson's character. In fact, it makes me want to go and watch Life On Mars again with the knowledge of who Nelson actually is, and see how his responses to Sam fit in with the revelation that he stands at the doorway to the next world.

And despite all this going on, the team still managed to solve a crime in their own inimitable, and completely over the top way. However, this time there was one casualty - Gene's beloved Quattro. Although, judging by the brochure on his desk at the very end, he was able to move on from the sad demise of his car.

Of course, nothing's perfect, and this final episode had its flaws. I could have done with out the hints at heaven and hell - rather like the references to God at the end of Battlestar Galactica, it was a touch of religiosity that did not, for me, add to the story. Still, I suppose I should count myself lucky that these were only hints, rather than explicit references, to life after death. And if there is a heaven - and I end up having to go there - then I hope it is like the one in Ashes to Ashes. All eternity in a pub - I could cope with that...

The other flaw was the character of Keats. He'd been a pretty good foe for Gene Hunt across this season, but in the final episode, the character just became too much. He seemed to appear everywhere, acting more as an irritant than an adversary - particularly in the scene where he was driving Alex and Gene back to London. Furthermore, his increasingly insane behaviour was probably meant to be threatening, but ended up looking pathetic. Yep, I get that he was meant to be the Devil. But if the Devil is a fat-faced man with bad hair who can be defeated just by pushing him away, then the Devil is really over-hyped.

All in all, though, this was a fine end to a great series. And it probably has a message for anyone about to embark on a high-concept series like Life On Mars or Ashes to Ashes - work out where you're going with your series before you start. In fact, I'd almost be inclined to advise such writers to have their final episode in mind before they sat down to write episode one. That way, the overall story can feel like a calculated progression to a planned, satisfying conclusion. That way, it can be as good, and as rewarding, as the end of Ashes to Ashes (and, at the same time, the real end to Life On Mars.)

*I'd clocked that the ghost haunting Alex throughout the season was Gene Hunt, and that he was probably similar to Alex and Sam. I know, I know, get me. This would probably be more impressive, though, had I clocked that everyone else in the series was dead, and it was all set in limbo. Unfortunately, my imagination didn't quite go that far.