This Forgotten Fantasy Detective Drama From 18 Years Ago Is Better Than You Remember

3 days ago 6

Alex Drake staring toward the right in Ashes to Ashes

Published Apr 10, 2026, 8:09 PM EDT

Roger is passionate about movies and TV shows, as well as the drive-in theater. Aside from hosting and producing three podcasts and a monthly live show, he also collects comic books, records, VHS tapes, and classic TV Guides. Currently, he's gotten into restoring cars and enjoys many of the shows on the Motortrend channel.

18 years later, Ashes to Ashes still feels like a show people remember in pieces. The car, the music, DCI Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) stomping through a scene like he owns the pavement. It arrived carrying the DNA of Life on Mars, but it didn’t just repeat the story. Here, DI Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes) shows up thinking she can make sense of it. She’s read the files on Sam Tyler (John Simm), who ended up in 1973 in the first series. Then she gets shot in 2008 and wakes up in 1981 anyway, as if the universe didn’t get the memo.

What sticks now isn’t the premise, it’s the way the show lets you play in its sandbox. Alex keeps trying to explain what’s happening to her. The cases keep coming, while the groovy 80s music keeps playing. And somewhere between a crime scene and a quiet moment in the office, it starts to feel like this place has rules that nobody bothered to write down.

In 'Ashes to Ashes,' Alex Walks Into a World She Already Knows — and Still Can’t Control

Alex Drake and Gene Hunt leaning against a red car in Ashes to Ashes

The setup sounds simple until it isn’t. Alex, a 2008 police psychologist, gets shot and wakes up in 1981, fully aware she shouldn’t be there and even more aware of who Gene is supposed to be. She's read Sam Tyler’s reports. She walks into Fenchurch CID already knowing how this man operates. That’s the twist: She isn’t guessing. She’s stepping into a system she’s studied and immediately challenging it.

In the pilot episode, Alex tries to stop Gene from using excessive force on a suspect to get results, bringing her modern techniques to 1981. But Gene doesn’t adjust his behavior for her; he’s still an "old-style" maverick, often bypassing procedure for results.

In Season 2, Episode 8, Gene and Alex have finally developed a "polarized" partnership. Alex uses her knowledge of the future (and her clinical, forensic approach) to identify that "Operation Rose" is a setup, despite having no "80s-style" evidence. Gene rejects her "future-talk" but trusts her gut instincts implicitly, barreling into the crime scene with brute force to stop it. They don’t always agree on method, rarely meeting in the middle, but often end up with the same outcome without ever taking the same path there.

Kimberley Sustad and Eric McCormack in an episode of Travelers.

Gene Hunt leaning out a car window and yelling in Ashes to Ashes

Alex treats everything like it can be solved if she just keeps pulling at the thread. She references her training. She studies the details and tries to stay one step ahead of whatever this place is supposed to be. She even creates a calendar wall chart to map out events and meticulously tracks the characters' movements, looking for the "thread" that connects her 2008 life to 1981.

But the show never lets her get comfortable. She gets phone calls from the hospital, flashes of her parents, and keeps seeing a strange clown figure that always turns up when things get quiet. None of it settles into a pattern she can trust. It builds, then shifts, then leaves her holding something that almost made sense.

By Season 3, Episode 5, Alex is no longer just trying to understand the world around her; she’s actively trying to break it open, especially as she’s pushed toward the idea that Gene may have murdered Sam Tyler and that solving it could be her way out. Simultaneously, Gene’s behavior turns more volatile, burning Sam’s file and even shooting a corrupt officer to keep certain truths buried, blurring the line between control and chaos. She starts to realize that the world she’s in is not what she thought.

The Procedural Cases in 'Ashes to Ashes' Keep Bleeding Into the Larger Show's Arc

Alex Drake sitting and leaning back with a pensive expression in Ashes to Ashes

The cases look familiar at first glance, but start to go off the rails after a while. Often, the show lets them spill over into everything else. In Series 2, Episode 1, the nightclub shooting starts as a clean cover-up of a dead officer, then keeps widening as Alex uncovers internal corruption. Gene sticks to his own version of the truth, forcing both of them to confront how deep it goes.

By the time you reach Season 2, Episode 8, loyalty has shifted depending on who’s protecting what. At the end, the resolution doesn’t feel like closure so much as something barely held together. Even smaller cases, like Season 1, Episode 4 with the missing girl, hinge on odd details, where a single hesitation or offhand comment can change the direction entirely.

Many times, they’ll leave you with the sense that solving the case doesn’t really settle it; it just moves the weight somewhere else. Even the smaller cases carry that same feeling, often having a witness who hesitates or a detail that doesn’t quite line up. Ultimately, nothing’s wrapped up tidily because it’s really about what gets left behind once the case is technically closed.

The Ending of 'Ashes to Ashes' Changes the Way You Look at the Series

The final season doesn’t rush to explain itself. In the first episode, things start to narrow as Alex enters 1983. Her team is in shambles, and Gene is on the run. Then, the main antagonist of the season, Jim Keats (Daniel Mays), arrives from Discipline and Complaints to investigate Gene for shooting Alex. Everything about him seems completely off, and it becomes clear he’s not just observing things, but reshaping them while pretending not to.

What follows comes out in pieces rather than in one big reveal. The idea of what this world actually is has been sitting there the whole time, just out of reach. When it finally comes into focus, it doesn’t feel like a twist. It feels like something you should have noticed earlier, but didn’t. That’s why it’s worth coming back to now. Not because it needs fixing or rediscovery, but because it plays differently when you already know it isn’t going to hand you anything wrapped in a bow. It trusts you to stay with it, even when it gets strange, and that’s exactly why it holds up.