It could so easily have gone so wrong. Spin-offs often do just that. Spin off. And then go wrong.
But within minutes of Ashes to Ashes bursting onto our screens, it was obvious - it's got the ability to be every bit as good as Life On Mars, even if we're doing without John Sim in the lead character role.
Instead, we have Keeley Hawes of Spooks fame, playing a DI who, when shot, finds herself going into some sort of coma which leads her back to 1981. Sound familiar to Life on Mars? Well why spoil a good formula when it so obviously works? The only element they've changed is the fact that Hawes's 2008 character actually knows all about what happened to John Sim's character, is quite sceptical about it, but then finds herself living it.
My other big concern was that Philip Glenister's character, DCI Gene Hunt, would become an even greater paraody of himself as he moved out of John Sim's - Sam Tyler's - shadow to take a more central role. Perhaps his character, and the two sidekicks he's dragged down from Manchester to the Met are even more of a parody than in Life on Mars, but it works. It really does.
I never thought I'd see a cop show where the hero ends up getting into a speedboat before riding to the rescue with a machine guin he's just taken off some drug dealers. Now I have. And I know this. It was great.
Never did I think I'd be able to take a TV drama seriously which includes a dream sequence where George and Zippy of Rainbow fame tell a daughter pining for her mother that she'll never see Mummy again (George: Molly's my friend now, Zippy. Zippy: Molly must be depserate. Genius.) But that's what happened. And guess what, it worked.
Keeley Hawes now realises she's stuck in 1981. And we are too. And if this first episode is anything to go by, the sights, the sounds, the smells of 1981 have been brought back to life. And long may DCI Hunt rule as a result!
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