Robin Kelly flags up this BBC Writersroom event on Monday April 14th with Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharaoh, creators of Ashes to Ashes and general screenwriting Gods. Tickets are free. I’ll be there – will you?
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ooh, I’m going to this too. We might finally get to catch up again!
Me too! Although I will have jetlag. Eee! x
I’ll come then we can prop Pots up as she falls asleep.
Hm, I must admit that after defending Ashes to Ashes I was a little disappointed in the finale: Alex didn’t actually achieve anything, not even finding out why her parents died (that information was presented to her on a platter, not because of anything she did). It just felt anticlimactic, especially as Alex was such an active character up to that point: I wanted her to be rewarded somehow, obviously not by saving her parents, but it would have been nice if her efforts could somehow have been rewarded with enlightenment.
Though possibly I’m missing the point, and the whole theme was that all her efforts would be in vain and her enlightenment could only come through undeserved grace. Thus cleverly undercutting the ‘I must fight’ motif. Do you think that was it?
I wouldn’t go so far as “undeserved grace” SK – I didn’t have the same disappointment in the story as you. It seemed logical to me that whatever she did, it would come to nothing since it was not about STOPPING her parents’ death (even just within her own mind) as coming to terms with it – & isn’t coming to terms with certain events actually accepting they happened? Therefore she DID do something I thought, since she realises that whatever happened, she was not responsible for those events NOR could change them – which I thought the subtext was for her mission. I thought the interesting thing there was the fact she had seen Gene Hunt in REAL LIFE as a young girl and she’s piecing this altogether still, hence her remaining in the fantasy – which we *knew* would happen since there were two series of LoM ; )
How does she ‘come to terms’ with the events, though? By discovering why it happened.
But that discovery doesn’t happen as a result of anything she did, is my problem. She didn’t discover the tape; she didn’t piece together the clues to work out what happened. She was just handed the information out of the blue.
And that just felt a bit… anticlimactic. That the resolution of the whole thing, her uncovering The Truth and so being able to come to terms with it, was not as a result of her (considerable) efforts but was just dropped from the sky.
The ‘Gene is not just in her head’ thing is the kind of twist I mentioned expexting, and it’s nice, but it’s in the end just a bit of a gimmick: the emotional heart of the story is Alex’s discovery of the truth behind her parents’ death, and it’s that which she didn’t actually achieve — it was given to her instead.
I’ll see you good ladies there and maybe for a drink after..?
SK – I see what you mean, but since it’s all within the confines of her own mind anyway, I see it more as her joining the dots of what happened rather than it being “handed to her on a plate”.
Elinor – can’t stay too long after, but up for the day so we can have that drink before if that’s cool. x
Definitely! My people will call your people… x