Ashes to Ashes

[mick]

Did anyone notice the time hole in the store room?

No?!

Stepping into the store room instantly transported them from 1981 to 1983 where there was…

1. BMC 100 Betamax video cameras (circa 1983)
2. BMC 200 Betamax video cameras (circa 1983)
3. A Commmodore 1530 Cassette deck (1983 C64 design)
4. A rack of betamax cassettes (most featuring label designs from 1983)
5. A BASF cassette pulled from the rack (featuring the 1983 cover re-design)

Pretty bizzare as outside the storeroom everything is pretty much spot on for ’81, including TV sets, radios and the Commodore 8032 (1980) on Gene’s desk.

Will there be a subplot with the storeroom later that makes me look stupid?

So, my sad nerdy rantings aside, what did everyone think?

Topic

[mick]

> I suspect it might be trying to emulate a Commodore PET or something

I think it’s just a random font in green, looks like nothing from that sort of era, they should have just used the acctual 80 line display on the Commodore 8032 in Gene’s office.

>And BBC Micros were gorgeous machines. I used the successors (a BBC Master 128, a Risc PC, and later an Iyonix) for years.

As if it was possible, I now love you even more John.

[John Hoare]

As if it was possible, I now love you even more John.

Kissy-kissy.

Sadly, Peter Killworth died recently. He wrote the excellent Philosopher’s Quest for the Beeb – one of its very earliest text adventures.

[ChrisM]

I remember the computers being very big, but maybe that’s just compartively speaking.

As for text games, I used to sometimes play the Hitchhiker’s Guide game, but that was on the PC. Considering they had no graphics and probably wouldn’t be brought out nowasdays, they were good fun though. There was also a ZX Spectrum fantasy game I used to play which was similar in concept except you had rudimentary graphics and animation with that one.

I thought it interesting that they referred to those old text adventures in the psi-moon episode of season 5 (I forget the name now.) You know the one when Kryten get trapped under a girder in a damaged Starbug and he sends his hand walkies….

Brilliant scene that.

[mick]

Terrorform, and Lister is typing on a Amiga 3000 keyboard in that scene ;)

[John Hoare]

Text adventures are still being made – albeit not commercially. Check out this Wikipedia entry, although I don’t really think it gives a full picture of just how much great (and experimental) stuff is still being done.

I have a very soft spot for Adam Cadre’s I-0. But you could do a lot worse than try out Curses – the game that, in my opinion, kicked off the modern form of the interactive fiction genre, both techically and artistically. (And, to come full circle, was developed on an Acorn Archimedes – although it’s completely multi-platform.)

[John Hoare]

I remember the computers being very big, but maybe that?s just compartively speaking.

I don’t think they’re that big per se – it’s just that because the keyboard is built into the computer, you’ve got the entire bulk of it in front of you to look at, rather than a tower sitting at the side out of the way.

Mind you, they’re a hell of a lot bigger than my lovely little Mac Mini, of course! (Which I love dearly… but I’ll never fall in love with a set of machines again like I did with Acorn’s computers. Partly nostalgia, partly because they were distinctive – but mainly because they were so damn great.)

[Joey TORDFC]

I remember Granny’s Garden on the BBC Micro. We got to use it for half an hour once a week. Also the turtle floor drawing thing…forgot the name, but I suspect Mick will know.

Anyone ever see that Rather Good animation Hey Hey 16k?

[Jonathan Capps]

Logo!

[John Hoare]

Yes, Logo.

Granny’s Garden was great. My favourite was Flowers of Crystal, though – I remember being the first person in my class to get to Part Two on that. 4Mation did some wonderful games.

[James]

Play with Granny and her garden online.

http://www.kewlbox.com/games/playAD.aspx?gameId=241

[John Hoare]

Far, FAR better than the last episode. Still nowhere near LoM for me, for all sorts of reasons, but from about halfway in it kicked into a gear and became nice, entertaining telly.

The scene with Hunt and Ray without Drake being present *really* stuck out for me, though. I *do* wonder why they’ve decided to play hard and fast with this rule when they very rarely did it in LoM. Maybe it’s just to make the storytelling easier, but that particular scene jarred with me.

[penny]

The first episode crammed alot of information in to it and now it’s calmed down abit , which is nice. I still like it so far, but I’m not sure that it will be better than Life on Mars…it’s such a shame it has to be compared so harshly to it.

[Ian Symes]

Shut the fuck up about how it’s all in your mind, woman.

Other than that: great!

[Andrew]

> Shut the fuck up about how it?s all in your mind, woman.

I’m actually liking that stuff. It lets me buy the whole thing more than if she just went “Well, okay, I guess I’ll be here a while, let’s solve some crimes in the meantime.”

Also, the calendar countdown idea is very nifty.

[Dave]

I was born the day before Alex Drake’s parents died.

[Ian Symes]

I?m actually liking that stuff. It lets me buy the whole thing more than if she just went ?Well, okay, I guess I?ll be here a while, let?s solve some crimes in the meantime.?

Yeah, it’s good that she acknowledges it, but to do it so frequently gets on my pecs. Use it sparingly, by all means, but they completely overplay it. To call them “figments”, say “why is my psyche doing this?”, “why would I imagine that?” and suchlike twice a minute just takes you right out of the crime story, which is too important an element to be compromised. In fairness, this was largely concentrated in the first half of episode two, and was toned down a bit afterwards. I think the fake bomb in the Delorean was the turning point, IIRC.

[mick]

The Delorean was a flat bonnet ’83 model.

*runs away*

[Andrew]

> Yeah, it?s good that she acknowledges it, but to do it so frequently gets on my pecs.

Fair enough. I’m chalking it up to second-ep re-establishment for now, though I like the approach. I have a hard time taking the crimes seriously because they’re not happening. Asking ‘Why should this be important to me?’ gives it a dimension that’s really working for me.

> The Delorean was a flat bonnet ?83 model.

Still a coma dream… :-)

[Ian Symes]

I have a hard time taking the crimes seriously because they?re not happening.

This is never a problem for me. If it’s happening in the dream universe, then it’s relevant to the protagonist.

[Andrew]

> This is never a problem for me. If it?s happening in the dream universe, then it?s relevant to the protagonist.

I guess. Though if the protagonist knows they’re not real either, their investment is massively different. I guess that’s why I like the emphasis – it ensures that we’re reminded that while it ain’t real, it is ‘important’.

[Dave]

>*runs away*

I’m sorry but your run is totally anachronistic to the relevant time period.

[Pete Part Three]

’tis true. Running was invented in 1987 by Ian Running.

[Seb Patrick]

Andrew, I’m willing to bet you a pint that it isn’t just “all in her head” – at least, certainly not in the way she thinks it is, and in the way it was (or was made to appear to be) for Sam.

[Andrew]

Just reading that made me dizzy…

[Pete Part Three]

Gene Hunt’s world is some weird alternate reality run by David Bowie (the Goblin King, after all) that can only been visited in moments of high-emotion. Just North of Narnia, west of Wonderland.

[Seb Patrick]

So was no-one else expecting her mum to say “Alex, here is your egg in a bap”?

[Pete Part Three]

I love you, in a way.

[ChrisM]

Alex is quite a patronising mare isn’t she? It can get quite annoying, although I like her too.

The “Hello constructs!” line I did find amusing. I do hope that she gets more invested in the world around her as the series goes on though.

Some great comedy in this episode too. The scene when she goes upstairs to have a ‘fling’ with the business man (what did she see in him by the way? He was really greasy wasn’t he?) and the doors slide open to find another lady in ‘jockey mode’. Then she hits the down button to get away and the door keeps opening and closing instead.

The expression on her face was brilliant.

I’m not really into explicite sex in programmes, I find it a bit tacky… but the comedic tone somehow makes it hilarious. Especially as it’s so ridiculously simulated.

Overall I found this episode a bit uneven (probably not the right word)for some reason. Not easy to put into words why. Overall I like it though, not as much as Life on Mars, but to be fair it’s it’s own animal with a different tone.

[Jonathan Capps]

I thought this episode was a complete mess. The bomb storyline and its conclusion was so cack handed.

[penny]

It seems I’m now hooked on Ashes to Ashes and all thanks to iplayer…yay!

[Pete Part Three]

Life on Mars was an awesome series that will be remembered for years to come. Ashes to Ashes is all a bit meh.

[si]

>Ashes to Ashes is all a bit meh.

Yeah, I agree. I really want to love it, but at the moment, it’s just fairly entertaining.
The theme music is just the right side of cheese (it’s naff 1981 – okay), but her voiceover at the beginning sounds awful.

It’s all held together by the dynamic trio of Ray, Chris and the Gene Genie.

Incidentally, there’s a Gene Hunt Appreciation Society on Facebook, if anyone’s interested – http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10342346198&ref=mf

[Joey TORDFC]

Lynn from Alan Partridge made a lovely prostitute though.

[Dave]

That wasn’t Lynn, Lynn was played by Felicty Montagu.

That was Claire Rushbrook. The only thing I know her from was The Impossible Planet & The Satan Pit episodes of Doctor Who.

[Ian Symes]

They do look similar, though.

[Dave]

>They do look similar, though

Prostitutes?

[si]

Lucy Briers was in it this week. She played one of the replacement holgrams in Holoship.

Couldn’t make out which character (in ATA) she was, though.

[mick]

Keeley Hawes has excellent norks.

That is all.

[si]

I concur.

Shame she can’t act as well as John Simm. (That opening voiceover sounds worse every week)

[mick]

>(That opening voiceover sounds worse every week)

Yea… but it still gives me the horn.

[Nakrophile]

Fail.

[Dave]

Second series on the way though.

[Nakrophile]

Yeah, but still fail. Didn’t go the way I liked.

[John Hoare]

I watched none of the series beyond the second episode. After two episodes, Mitchell and Webb won every time.

I’ll catch up at some point before the second series, though.

[Pete Part Three]

Watch it (yet to see last night’s) but usually while doing other stuff. Such as flicking through a magazine or browsing the interweb. It’s not good enough to capture my whole attention and too many of the people in it annoy me:

1)Amellia Bulmore (despite her Partridge heritage)
2)Keeley Hawes (mainly because of her annoying character)
3)The female plod
4)Alex’s Daughter

If it had come first (instead of Life On Mars), I’d probably have given up at around episode two.

[pfm]

I don’t get the obsession with Hunt.

[ChrisM]

That’s the interesting thing isn’t it? It was touted as Hunt’s programme this one, but it was still Alex who was the primary character. Which makes sense since we’re kind of in her boots, so to speak (our view into that world.)

Overall I liked it. Had some funny moments and the ending twist was interesting. Not as good as Life On Mars but not bad.

And you’ve got a scary clown too. And it’s amusing (and a bit disturbing) to watch Alex getting all shrieky.

Spoiler-

Interesting that Shaz saw him too when near death. I notice a lot of other character points of view too which was interesting. I’ve remarked on it before, but it wasn’t just here and there but prevalent throughout the series.

[si]

The last three episodes have been great, and I loved the kind-of-twist involving Gene, and the reveal of the clown. Am now looking forward to the next series, though I can’t think what the series arc will be now that the 10-10-10* thing’s out the way.

(* that’s hour-date-month, for all you slow folks)

[Pete Part Three]

The last episode was by far the best. Was quite surprised with the ending as thought it was being set up that Evan was the person who signed up the services of the bomber (he is, after all, the one who wandered off with Alex’s daughter and it would have given a bit of momentum to series two). That said, the clown payoff really worked.

And the stuff with Chris in the cells was great too.

A shame the other seven episodes weren’t up to this standard.

[Joey TORDFC]

I cried :'(

[Author]

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