Ashes to Ashes Series 3 (may contain Spoilers)

[Starkers]

One query I still have re A2A and LoM is this. How come Sam, Alex and the new guy at the end all knew it was wrong? Ray Chris and Shaz didn't seem to have the same level of perception. I can accept it with Chris and Ray because they'd been with Gene a while, and their deaths clearly were in the past (as near as I could tell) but Shaz? Clearly Shaz had come from a future time as well (going by the uniform and hair--looked 90s to me)

I can understand Alex, because she'd met Sam (although had she?) but why didn't Sam or iPhone guy just fit in like the others had?

 

[Bob The Skutter]

One query I still have re A2A and LoM is this. How come Sam, Alex and the new guy at the end all knew it was wrong? Ray Chris and Shaz didn't seem to have the same level of perception. I can accept it with Chris and Ray because they'd been with Gene a while, and their deaths clearly were in the past (as near as I could tell) but Shaz? Clearly Shaz had come from a future time as well (going by the uniform and hair--looked 90s to me)

I can understand Alex, because she'd met Sam (although had she?) but why didn't Sam or iPhone guy just fit in like the others had?

They all forgot because they'd been there a long time. Like Gene had, like Alex was beginning to in series 2, and apparently like Sam did after a while.

 

[ITL]

^ So - in order for Gene to Take Them To The Pub he first has to remember who he really is. And Sam was the first of the gang to be Pubbed. Right?

 

[Bob The Skutter]

^I don't know. Seems it's a matter of them achieving something they feel they didn't manage in life, rather than Gene having to take them to the pub. They went to the pub a lot in LoM, and it seemed like the catalyst for Shaz, Ray and Chris was achieving something, promotion to CID, saving the life of an Army man, and standing up to his guv are what it looks like got them all ready to go, so I think it's possible they would have moved on anyway if it wasn't got the effect of Jim trying to take them the other way.

 

[Angel4576]

Chris, Ray and Shaz all died outright before they got to Geneworld as well, whereas Sam, Alex, and presumably the new guy were all in comas when they originally got there.

 

[Starkers]

Chris, Ray and Shaz all died outright before they got to Geneworld as well, whereas Sam, Alex, and presumably the new guy were all in comas when they originally got there.

Ok, that does make sense.

I'm assuming that when Alex thought she woke up from the coma at the start of S3, this was just a coma within a coma. Meanwhile it would seem that Sam really did come out of his coma, then died in order to go back?

 

[captcalhoun]

^ yes.

matthew graham said in the SFX interview that Alex was in a coma in her coma. Sam however, really woke up and then chucked hisself off the roof.

 

[Angel4576]

The 'coma within a coma' was also talked about and confirmed on the Season 2 DVDs.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Chris, Ray and Shaz all died outright before they got to Geneworld as well, whereas Sam, Alex, and presumably the new guy were all in comas when they originally got there.

So Gene has known, all along, that he was this angelic type? Did the others (not counting Sam and Alex obviously) eventually forget the native time periods that they came from?

 

[Saul]

The 'coma within a coma' was also talked about and confirmed on the Season 2 DVDs.

So when did Alex die?

 

[Deckerd]

Did you spot out they out-BSG'd BSG?

Did anyone spot this? I forgot to come back and see.

 

[Pingfah]

Please, do enlighten us.

 

[Captain Shaw]

What I want to know is what as the devil got against dead coppers?
Did he get a speeding ticket once.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Chris, Ray and Shaz all died outright before they got to Geneworld as well, whereas Sam, Alex, and presumably the new guy were all in comas when they originally got there.

So Gene has known, all along, that he was this angelic type? Did the others (not counting Sam and Alex obviously) eventually forget the native time periods that they came from?

Gene had forgotten, he'd been in there so long he had no memory of being in the real world.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Did you spot out they out-BSG'd BSG?

Did anyone spot this? I forgot to come back and see.

How do you mean? God did it?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

What I want to know is what as the devil got against dead coppers?

That's not surprising. The Devil would naturally be out to corrupt everyone he can. That's just what he does.

Although...

Spoiler: Ashes

I read an interview with the showrunners in which they say that Keats isn't actually the devil, more like the Antichrist. He's on the phone to someone called 'Dave' in the final episode - and that Dave is actually David Bowie, who IS the devil!

 

[Angel4576]

The 'coma within a coma' was also talked about and confirmed on the Season 2 DVDs.

So when did Alex die?

At the beginning of season 3, presumably when she 'woke up' in Geneworld again.

At the end of season 2, after the successful operation on Alex in the real world she gets an infection. They end up using antibiotics that are so powerful that they can only use 50mls. As the episode progresses Alex sees numbers in random places indicating that the doseage that's being used in the real world is going up and up, culminating in getting to 50Mls at the episode's end.

I would imagine that Gene accidentally shooting her reflects the fact that some serious damage was being done now back in the real world, ie. she was dying. She then woke up in the 'coma in a coma' world. I think this possibly represented a deeper coma still to the one in which she was in beforehand, which ultimately is ended when she 'wakes up' again in Geneworld, only this time, she's returned there because she actually now has passed over.

Probably not a great explanation, but either way, Alex died at 9:06am in the first episode of the third season.

 

[firehawk12]

Yeah, I guess if we look at Sam as part of the pattern, the only way he could return to the world was if he died again and that's exactly what happened to Alex.

Hah, I'm posting in that other thread about the finale so I'll just say it here - I think ultimately this ending ruins the ending of LoM. We know that Sam chooses to die and return to his fantasy world because, even though he's able to work out his issues in the present - specifically his daddy issues (which is why he meets his mother one last time when he wakes up) - he can't stand the emptiness of the present. In fact, he doesn't want to go to cop heaven - he's perfectly happy living in what we now know is cop purgatory.

So then they throw in this new subplot about how Gene didn't want to let his friends go and that he's the center of it all. They don't explain why Sam would want to leave in the first place since he had no expectation that there was yet another afterlife to the afterlife fantasy that he had.

I feel like the original intent - that it was all a creation, as implied by the girl turning off the audience in the very final shot of LoM, worked perfectly well. But somewhere along the way, they switched the focus to Gene and they had to find a way to shoehorn in Sam into that new focus.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I feel like the original intent - that it was all a creation, as implied by the girl turning off the audience in the very final shot of LoM, worked perfectly well.

See? Not so different from the US version, if you take it that way.

 

[firehawk12]

Yeah, fair enough. Except that they were more playfully ambiguous about it all and left you to believe it could be anything in the UK version.