Hunt gets his own story

Episode 2 of Ashes to Ashes took the show in a new direction. Not only does DI Drake have a series-long arc, but now so does Gene Hunt. It transpires that Super Mac is not only thoroughly corrupt, but he’s a Freemason. Hunt’s predecessor lost his job for refusing to join the Masons, and now Hunt is being invited to join the Lodge.

So Hunt complies, discovering that Ray Carling and at least one other of his officers is already a member. Drake observes Hunt’s apparent fall, but he reveals that he’s decided to root out corruption from the inside. So this – unless we’re being misled – is to be Hunt’s story. He persuades Mac not to drop a murder case against a fellow Mason – too much of a bad egg.

Once again the crime of the week was secondary. We got more of the Drake mystery, a rather obscure soundtrack and a lower than usual quota of gags. And Chris proposed to Shazzer. It looks like everything’s all set up now for the rest of the series.

Gene Hunt returns

The second series of Ashes to Ashes didn’t exactly explode onto the screen. But that might be a good thing.

A year on, Alex Drake is still hoping to get back to 2008, but she seems to have almost accepted that she belongs in the early 80s. But this time there is a barrage of mysterious signs from the future, and trying to figure them all out (especially when some of them must be red herrings) is going to be tricky.

The case of the week was distinctly pedestrian – corrupt policeman murdered by colleague in seedy Soho – but it served the purpose of introducing a key new character: Gene Hunt’s boss, Charles (Super Mac) Mackintosh. As for the Gene Genie himself – well, it was more of the usual in the dialogue, but there are continuing signs that the Manc Lion is growing ever more mature. His quiet demeanour during Super Mac’s opening lecture was a world away from the Gene Hunt of Life on Mars.

The soundtrack was as perky as ever, mixing big hits with a couple of less well-known songs. It’s always the latter that really bring back the period for me; I’ve heard Rio so many times that it’s lost its essential 80s-ness, but Rat Race and The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum are firmly fixed in their era.

The only thing that really worries me after this opener is that the overall mystery story might just get too convoluted, dominating the weekly drama – this week’s episode suffered a little from exactly that problem. But with only eight episodes to play with, the risk of the show disappearing up its own posterior (in the manner of Lost or Heroes) is slim.