MUCH debate in the last few weeks about Ashes to Ashes - rip roaring success or just a slapstick Life on Mars? Two distinct camps appear to be emerging - those who wanted Life on Mars to be recreated in the 1980s, and those who just like the new show.
Me? I fall into the second camp. Change can be a good thing, and the whole point of Ashes to Ashes is that the central character - DI Alex Drake - actually understands what is happening to her. She gets that has slipped into a coma and is now living out some bizarre life in the 1980s. She understands this because she has studied Sam Tyler, the star of Life On Mars, who was transported back to the 1970s when he went into a coma.
So Alex Drake wants to have fun. And while her continual mocking of her situation should actually have led to the real star DCI Gene Hunt chucking her into the Thames already, the result of DI Drake wanting to have fun in her predicament is a much lighter programme.
Hand on heart, did people honestly want an 80s version of Life On Mars? It wouldn't have worked because Sam Tyler isn't it, and therefore dropping another character into the same position would have made the programme rather awkward - and too open to comparisons about its prequel.
Gene Hunt's character was just ripe for making even larger-than-life and while the opening week where he appeared under Tower Bridge in a speedboat carrying a semi-automatic rifle might have been pushing it a tad too far, it has rather settled down since then.
The fact is this: Good programmes need to evolve, or change, to survive. The trick is ensuring the change works. Changing the target audience of a high school drama from teenagers to the under 12s, ala Grange Hill, is a rather obvious change that was never destined to work.
Skins (C4, E4, 4OD) is, like Ashes to Ashes, proof that change can work. The first series of Skins was a relatively light-hearted festival of teenage life. Think the drug dealer with the handle-bar moustache, the parents obsessed with sex. Yes, it dealt with quite difficult issues, such as eating disorders, but did so in a way which wasn't too serious but at the same time wasn't flippant.
This series, now in its second week, has been much darker in that respect. Tony, the lead character, player by Nicholas Hoult, was hit by a bus at the end of Series One, and unlike a plot from Neighbours, is taking a while to recover. The first week of series two set the scene about how his friends have coped with his slow recovery - setting the stall out for Series Two.
For those not in the know, (and this description comes from a Guardian blog): the series revolves around super-cool Tony, played by an all-grown up Nicholas Hoult from About a Boy fame, and his buddies - geeky Sid, long suffering girlfriend Michelle, anorexic Cassie, drug popping Chris, musician Jal, gay dancer Maxxie and Anwar, who struggles between his Asian heritage and his lust for breasts.
But despite the darker tones, it still finds a way to display Bill Bailey as a country-and-western dancer whose partner is his dog (see below)
Like Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes, the basics are still the same - but the writers' have moved it on to keep it interesting. And that's what makes both programmes top class.
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