Channel Surfing: TNT Cans "Trust Me," Showtime Passes on All Pilots, Adam Scott and Zak Orth Get "Wonderful" for HBO, and More

Welcome to your Monday morning television briefing.

TNT has officially canceled freshman drama Trust Me, starring Eric McCormack and Tom Cavanagh. The Warner Horizon-produced series, which launched with 3.4 million viewers and quickly lost much of that viewership, will not be returning for a second season. McCormack himself has already signed on to another project, ABC's untitled Tad Quill comedy pilot. The cabler, meanwhile, has three new series in the works: Ray Romano dramedy Men of a Certain Age, medical drama Hawthorne (formerly known as Time Heals), and Deep Blue (formerly known as The Line). (Hollywood Reporter)

Showtime is now zero for four. The pay cabler has now opted not to order any of its four pilots to series in the last month, deciding over the weekend not to hand out a series order to Tim Robbins-created drama Possible Side Effects, staring Josh Lucas as a pharmaceuticals family scion. Previously, the network had shelved pilots Ronna and Beverly, The L Word spin-off The Farm, and The End of Steve. (Variety)

Adam Scott (Party Down) and Zak Orth (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) will star opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar, Molly Parker, and Nate Corddry in HBO single-camera comedy pilot The Wonderful Maladays. Orth will play the playwright husband of Mary (Parker) who is described as "the confident moral center of the family." Scott, meanwhile, will play the businessman ex of Alice (Gellar). (Hollywood Reporter)

Elsewhere at HBO, Lake Bell (Boston Legal) has joined the cast of comedy series How to Make It in America, starring Bryan Greenberg and Victor Rasuk, as a series regular. And Ed Quinn (Eureka) will recur on Season Two of HBO drama series True Blood, where he will play Stan, a powerful Texan vampire. (Hollywood Reporter)

FX president John Landgraf told TV Week's Jon Lafayette that he believes that cablers are developing too many original series and ultimately the quality will suffer. "I’m of a different opinion than some of my competitors, in that I think that if you try to compete with them in terms of volume, you’re inevitably going to suffer erosion in terms of quality," said Landgraf. "When was the last time you had a broadcast network that had eight original dramas on the air and you thought they were all good? If a broadcast network can’t do it, then I think a basic-cable network’s never going to be able to do it." (TV Week)

Ashes to Ashes star Philip Glenister has hit out at critics of his co-star Keeley Hawes, whom he believes has suffered undue nastiness on the part of critics. "What I objected to most was the personal nature of some of the attacks and the utter lack of appreciation of what a fine actress Keeley is, a woman with this incredibly impressive range of emotions and almost uncanny ability to cry on cue," said Glenister in an interview with The Daily Record. "Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I actually thought some of the remarks made about Keeley, and her acting, were utterly inexcusable. What I objected to most was this idea, this totally bogus idea, that she was somehow lightweight, that she wasn't a key part of the show. She was central to it. There wouldn't have been an Ashes To Ashes without her. So, this time round, I hope that the comments about Keeley's contribution are a little more considered." (The Daily Record)

E! Online's Natalie Abrams talks to 90210 showrunner Rebecca Rand Kirschner Sinclair about what to expect at the end of the freshman season, including some tather tantalizing tidbits about "sex, drugs, alcohol, and murder," which co-star Rob Estes teased at last week's Paley Festival panel. "There are some rash actions at the end of the season, where one of the characters makes some decisions that may have very serious consequences, life and death consequences, if you will," said Kirschner Sinclair. "A lot of stuff happens during prom. There's love that's finally fulfilled and yet, because of various circumstances, potentially destroyed forever. There's love, there's death, there's heartache, heartbreak." (E! Online's Watch with Kristin)

Food Network has ordered eight episodes of culinary/travel series Extreme Cuisine With Jeff Corwin, which will follow Corwin as he travels the world in search of exotic foods and local culture. Series is expected to launch this fall on the basic cabler. (Hollywood Reporter)

Keith Allen will not be returning for Season Four of BBC One drama Robin Hood (which airs in the States on BBC America), should the network decide to order another season of the drama. "I doubt I'll go back for a fourth series if they do one," Allen told The South Wales Evening Post, "it's boring to work on now. I've done three series, and I'd like to move on to something else." Series star Jonas Armstrong had already made it clear that the current season would be his last. (Digital Spy)

Spike has ordered a pilot for docuseries Pirate Hunters: USN, which will follow the members of the U.S. Navy's anti-piracy unit in the Gulf of Aden. Project, from 44 Blue Prods. and executive producers Rasha Drachkovitch and Adam Friedman, will focus on the same region where Somali pirates took American sea captain Richard Phillips hostage and commandeered his cargo ship. (Variety)

Stay tuned.

Talk Back: BBC America's "Ashes to Ashes" Series Premiere

"The shrieking of nothing is killing..."

By now, you've read my original review for Ashes to Ashes, written in February 2008 when the series first launched in the UK, and my recent second take on the darkly seductive series, after watching the whole first season.

But, now that Ashes to Ashes has aired Stateside, I am curious to know what you thought of the first episode of the sequel to Life on Mars. Are you head over heels in love with Keeley Hawes' steely-nerved Alex Drake? Are you alternately terrified and intrigued by the Pierrot clown? How awesome is Gene Hunt in the 1980s? And what's your theory on what's happened to Alex... and how does it connect to the fate of poor Sam Tyler?

(And before you ask: the song playing at the very end of the episode? It's Roxy Music's "Same Old Scene.")

Talk back here.

Next week on Ashes to Ashes, Gene Hunt is determined to keep a protest about the Docklands redevelopment under control as the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana quickly approaches, while Alex falls for a De Lorean-driving playboy.

I'm Happy, Hope You're Happy Too: Another Look at BBC America's "Ashes to Ashes"

Longtime readers of this site know of both my love for the original UK series Life on Mars and its sensational sequel, Ashes to Ashes, which aired its first season last year in the UK.

My original review for Ashes to Ashes, which launches Stateside this weekend on BBC America, can be found here. I wrote the review back in February 2008, when the series first launched and I've fallen under its spell ever since. (There's also my very spoiler-laden review of the first season finale here.)

While Life on Mars followed Detective Sam Tyler (John Simm) seemingly back in time to 1973 after a car accident, Ashes to Ashes focuses on a female profiler named Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes) who is shot at point blank range and finds herself propelled backwards in time to 1981. Cue the New Romantics soundtrack, Thatcher-era power suits, a terrifying Pierrot clown (courtesy of David Bowie's music video for "Ashes to Ashes") and a blood red Audi Quatro... driven by none other than Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister).

But, wait, wasn't Gene Hunt just a fictional construct created by Sam Tyler's subconscious as he lay in a coma in present-day Manchester? There's no short answer to that tantalizing proposition but Alex is acutely aware of her predicament, as she clings to life after being shot by a madman and desperately searches for a way to return to her daughter. She knows that the world Sam described after he woke up from his coma can't be real, and yet here she is interacting with (not to mention arguing with and flirting with) Gene Hunt. And there's Ray Carling (Dean Andrews) and Chris Skelton (Marshall Lancaster) to boot. Just what is going on here?

Like Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes has a personal puzzle for Alex Drake to solve. In this case, it's the mystery behind the deaths of her parents, a pair of prominent human rights lawyers whom Alex believes may have been murdered. Seemingly arriving in 1981 mere weeks before their deaths, Alex believes she may have been sent back to prevent their deaths... or to catch their killer.

But don't think that Ashes to Ashes is merely Life on Mars with a new coat of paint and a, well, Members Only jacket. It's a deeply nuanced series that stands on its own two feet with its own intricate mythology and psychology, not to mention a haunting specter in the form of the Pierrot clown at its center. Tonally, it has a sexier, edgier quality as well and tweaks some of the clichés and stereotypes of Thatcher-era London with a tongue-in-cheek fashion.

It's good to see the incomparable Gene Hunt again and Glenister gives Hunt's trademark swagger a little tinge of weariness as well (unlike, however, Harvey Keitel's portrayal of the role, which makes Hunt seem grumpy and, well, sleepy). Having transferred to the Metropolitan Police with Chris and Ray, Gene is now out of his element as well: a Northerner in London. This fish-out-of-water quality gives him a rapport with Alex, with whom Gene instantly strikes up a love-hate relationship.

For her part, Keeley Hawes gives Alex a touching vulnerability that wasn't seen in Sam Tyler as well as a need to connect with her parents and a real pull back to the future in the form of her daughter Molly. It's a series of invisible threads that connects her to her past, present, and future and each episode tugs on them in various ways. But Alex isn't a pushover: she's also a tough-as-nails psychological profiler who can get inside the mind of the criminals she's chasing... and hold her liquor. She's more than an equal match for the misogynistic Gene Hunt.

Rounding out the cast is Montserrat Lombard, who portrays ditzy WPC Sharon "Shaz" Granger. Shaz isn't a replacement for Liz White's Annie in Life on Mars but a product of a generation of women that didn't have to fight so hard for their place in the workforce. While Annie had to prove her smarts each and every day, Shaz drifts by with her looks and engages in a blatant romance with Chris Skelton. Yet, she's a compassionate and brave member of the team in her own right and Alex takes her under her wing. Trust me when I say that Shaz will become a much loved element of the series along the way.

Ultimately, Ashes to Ashes is a very different beast than Life on Mars. To me, it's paradoxically darker and funnier than its predecessor and gets under your skin in a way that's difficult to shake. (Plus, you can't beat the soundtrack.) All in all, the darkly seductive Ashes to Ashes is the ideal way to spend a Saturday evening. Even Gene Hunt couldn't find fault with that. So crack open a bottle of Chianti, turn up the Bowie, and prepare to head back to 1981.

Ashes to Ashes launches this Saturday evening at 9 pm ET/PT on BBC America.

Top TV Picks of 2008

As it's nearly the end of the calendar year (only a few more days to go, in fact), I figured now was as good a time as any to look back at some of the shows that that have entertained and inspired me over the past year.

It's been a crazy year, between the WGA strike affecting everything from truncated freshman seasons for Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, and Chuck, delayed seasons for FX's Damages and HBO's Big Love (and a host of others), and a generally frantic development season that only saw two relative hits emerge this fall.

So, what were the favorite series in the Televisionary household? Which left me wanting more... and which ones made me eager to change the channel? Find out after the jump.

Best Reality Series:

Top Chef
The Amazing Race
Flipping Out

Top Chef remains my number one reality obsession. Bravo and Magical Elves have done themselves proud with this sleek, slick production that makes the art of cooking into a nail-biting competition in which egos clash, visionaries emerge, and the judges knock the competitors down a few pegs each week. While those of us at home can't taste the food being prepared, the aura of creativity around this series is more than enough to sate us.

Despite some creakiness in The Amazing Race's format (this most recent cycle won't go down as the most entertaining iteration of the series), this reality franchise remains one of the most consistently high quality unscripted productions around... if the casting directors do their job right. I'm still engaged with the ride but I was hoping for a bit more out of this most recent season, given that one of the main reasons I tune in is for the interpersonal element, seeing which teams emerge stronger than ever after running this gauntlet and which crumble under the pressure.

Flipping Out remains one of the most gripping and tense hours of television around... and also one of the most bizarre. Its breakneck second season had boss Jeff Lewis installing a nanny cam in his office to spy on his employees, the dissolution of Jenni and Chris' marriage, and the Client From Hell which lead to Jeff quitting, not once, but twice over the course of the season. Flipping Out might nominally be about the Los Angeles real estate market (and speculative buying) but it's about some of the quirkiest characters ever to be drawn on the small screen and I just can't look away.

Reality Series Most in Need of Fixing:

Project Runway

Given the current legal battle over the future of the series (producers the Weinstein Co. tried to take it to Lifetime), it seems like the most recent season of Project Runway will be the last for some time (or until that case is tried)... and I have to say that I found it to be pretty lackluster as the contestants seemed more apt to making each other (and themselves) cry than wowing us with any sartorial finesse. And overall the competition seemed overshadowed by Kenley's tantrums. A series with that many seasons under its belt should know better and it's likely that it will be the last one I end up watching.

Best British Imports:

Doctor Who
Skins
Gavin & Stacey

In its fourth season, Doctor Who remained just as entertaining and exciting as ever, even as it introduced the Doctor's latest companion, Donna Noble (Catherine Tate, who originated the role in the 2006 Christmas Special, "The Runaway Bride"), easily the most heartbreaking character on the revival series. In a season that saw the return of three prior companions (including fan favorite Rose Tyler), it's the sacrifice that Donna makes that adds a sheen of loss and tragedy to this rip-roaring sci-fi adventure series. And its season finale altered the landscape of Doctor Who, featuring a final battle with some ancient enemies in the form of the Daleks and Davros and a bittersweet ending that had our Doctor (David Tennant) off on his own once again, just as he finally found a traveling companion who might have been his very equal.

Like a bolt from the blue, Skins has shown its devoted audience just what the teen drama genre is capable of, deftly turning out plots ranging from eating disorders and love triangles to the death of a parent, unwanted pregnancy, and teenage mortality. It also gracefully juggled a wide array of well-drawn characters that were alternately cruel, kind, funny, bitter, sly, witty, stupid, and gifted (often all at the same time) but who always remained sympathetic. At times laugh-out-loud funny and utterly traumatic, Skins redefined drama for the under-18 set while also remaining completely relatable to those of us who have left our teen years behind.

No romantic comedy has ever achieved the level of bittersweet emotion that Gavin & Stacey has managed to acquire. What started out as a simple love story between strangers--Essex lad Gavin and Welsh lass Stacey--transformed into a touching portrait of disparate national identities, the problems facing today's twenty-something lovers, and, well, omelettes. It's a rare thing to find a series that makes you laugh as much as it does make you cry, but Gavin & Stacey--created by co-stars Ruth Jones and James Corden--effortlessly achieves both ends with a wit and flair all its own.

Best British Import (Yet to Air in the States):

Ashes to Ashes

The sequel to the cult hit Life on Mars (which wrapped its series very early on in 2007 and thus gets an honorable mention), Ashes to Ashes follows a single mum forensic profiler who, after being shot in the head in 2008, finds herself seemingly sent back in time to 1981, where she encounters Gene Hunt, the New Romantics, a terrifying phantom Pierrot clown, and a mystery that involves the death of her parents. Can she figure out a way to return to her daughter in 2008 and cheat death? Both funnier and scarier than Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes breathes new life into this franchise, which seemed to come to an end with John Simm's Sam Tyler. US audiences can catch this fantastic series beginning in March on BBC America.

Biggest Letdown from a Once Great Series:

The Office

I'll be blunt: The Office used to be one of my very favorite series but watching this sodden comedy has become more of a chore than a pleasure. While Amy Ryan's Holly Flax seemed to reinvigorate this comedy for a bit, her six-episode arc quickly came to an end and has left The Office at a bit of a loss this season. The comedy seems more prone to overwrought absurdity than tweaking humor from the mundane, Jim and Pam irritated me more than ever as a long-distance duo, and the moments of comedic genius, which The Office used to have in abundance, seem ever more isolated. To me, it's not Meredith who needs an intervention, it's The Office itself.

Best Canceled Series:

Pushing Daisies
The Wire

More than any other cancellation in recent television history (save perhaps, Arrested Development), I feel utterly betrayed by that of Pushing Daisies. After launching a nine-episode first season last fall (courtesy of the writers strike), Pushing Daisies should have returned with new episodes in the spring... yet ABC unwisely chose to "relaunch" the series this fall and squandered both the creative momentum and the ratings Pushing Daisies had achieved in its first season. Hilarious, touching, and quirky, Pushing Daisies was unlike anything ever to air on network television and redefined genre-busting sensibilities, blending together supernatural drama, romance, humor, and mystery procedural into one tasty package that was as comforting as a slice of warm apple pie. You'll be missed.

Over the course of five compelling seasons, HBO's The Wire tackled every issue facing today's modern American cities--from corruption and the drug trade to the failing educational systems and underfunded police forces--and did so while juggling a cast of deeply flawed individuals each trying to cope with the lot that fate dealt them. But it was the series' Dickensian aspect that earned it a place in my heart, as it gave equal weight to cops, drug dealers, homeless people, hoppers, politcos, and teachers, creating a memorable fabric of a city on the brink of destruction. Season Five of The Wire may not have been the series' strongest--with an indictment of the media and Jimmy staging a series of homeless serial killings--but it also paid off the series' long-standing storylines in a powerful and memorable way. Likely, there will never be another series as raw and honest as this one.

Best US Comedies:

30 Rock
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Chuck

Consistently belly-achingly hysterical, 30 Rock remains my favorite comedy on television and only seems to be getting better and better with age, even as it remains the most politically-minded program on television today. Not bad for a series that's allegedly just about the goings-on behind-the-scenes at an NBC comedy sketch series. In the hands of creator Tina Fey and her crack team of writers, 30 Rock continues to push the envelope for broadcast comedy, offering well-placed snarky jabs at the media elite, politicians, and pop culture icons while also giving the audience one of the most well-drawn (and realistic) portrait of a 2008 working woman in Liz Lemon. My only complaint: that it can't be on every single week, all year long. Blerg indeed.

Raunchy and provocative, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is a raucous laugh riot from start to finish. Set in a low-rent Philly pub owned by a bunch of shallow, self-absorbed, and selfish losers, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia follows Seinfeld's adage that the funniest characters need not be the most sympathetic. It's the best exploration of arrested adolescence ever to hit the small screen and its absurdist plots--Mac and Charlie faking their deaths, a story about the cracking of the Liberty Bell, a forensic investigation into bed-bound fecal matter--reach to new depths of bizarre depravity and hilarity. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Chuck isn't quite a comedy but it is a series that skillfully manages to conflate comedy, romance, workplace intrigue, and action/adventure into one satisfying thrill-ride each week, all while remaining uproarious and emotionally satisfying. And Chuck has something for everyone: a star-crossed romance between Everyman Chuck (Zachary Levi) and his handler Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski), explosions, double-crosses, quirky best friends, and fancy spy technology. In its second season, Chuck has only gotten better: more funny, more gripping, more touching. And I can't wait to see where it takes us next.

Best US Dramas:

Lost
Battlestar Galactica
Mad Men

In its fourth season, Lost seemingly rewrote its own rules, having the fabled Oceanic Six made it off of the island and return to normal society and chucking out its own flashback technique in order to make use of a groundbreaking narrative format in which we now flashed forward, seeing the castaways who made it off of the island adapt to life back home and see Jack (Matthew Fox) come to the realization that they had to go back. A brilliant gambit that paid off in spades, the flash forwards added yet another layer of dread and mystery to a series already teeming with intrigue. Having an end date for the series has invigorated the path to that ultimate end of the franchise and made each and every installment count. Plus, "The Constant," in which Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) travels through time and encounters physicist Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) in his quest to find his lost love Penny (Sonya Walger), remains one of the very best single hours on television this year and a reminder of why Lost breaks nearly every one of television's rules, resulting in a series that anything but predictable.

Halfway done with its final season, Sci Fi's Battlestar Galactica has remained must-see TV for lovers of high quality drama. Despite its setting in the far-flung reaches of space, Battlestar Galactica has remained a series that offers a dark mirror through which to view our own society, offering glimpses through the looking glass at the occupation in Iraq, racial cleansing, religious intolerance, human resistance, political tampering, civil war, and the hard choices governments must make in times of war. Having discovered Earth to be nothing but a radioactive wasteland, the crew of the Galactica--in an uneasy alliance with the Cylon race--learns to their dismay that we must all be careful what we wish for. There's still many mysteries to be solves as we begin the countdown to the series finale and I for one and dizzy with anticipation to see how Ronald D. Moore and David Eick manage to tie everything up.

AMC's Mad Men, which wrapped its second season earlier this year, is one of the most gripping dramas on television, regardless of what period of time it might be set in. Expertly recreating the 1960s with its attendant sexism, racism, and homophobia, Mad Men explores the public and private lives of the era's men and women with equal relish. This season produced some shocking twists, including Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) telling Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) that she gave birth to his child and gave it up for adoption, Betty (January Jones) kicking Don (Jon Hamm) out of the house, Don's trip to California and his rendezvous with the wife of the man whose identity he had stolen, and Peggy finally placing herself on equal footing with Don Draper. But none was more brutally shocking than the rape of Joan (Christina Hendricks), right in the offices of Sterling Cooper, by her supposedly "perfect" fiancé. Terrifying, brutal, and horrifying, the scene showed just how far women had come since then, just how little had truly changed, and just how quickly every vestige of power can be yanked away.

Best New Fall Series:

Fringe

I'll admit it: it was tough to find a new fall series that I could give the term "best" to. After a season that saw many new series strike out, only Fringe and The Mentalist emerged as justifiable ratings hits. Fringe is the far superior series and I'm somewhat enjoying it but I still have huge reservations about the series' choice to use self-contained storylines rather than serialized storytelling. (Additionally, I've twice now offered up suggestions on how to improve the series.) Fringe has an extraordinary amount of potential that I want the series to achieve sooner rather than later but it seems to be suffering in its execution: too much formula and water-treading and not enough layered mythology and trust in its audience.

And there we have it. A sampling of some of my favorites from 2008. As the year rapidly swings to a close, I'm curious to see what your favorite (and least favorite) series were, which shows you can't get enough of, and which ones you're happy to see the back of now.

One Flash of Light But No Smoking Pistol: BBC America Acquires "Life on Mars" Sequel "Ashes to Ashes"

Christmas has once again come early. Fans of British import drama Life on Mars can look forward to the launch of its sequel Ashes to Ashes on BBC America in the new year.

The digital cabler announced today that it had acquired sixteen episodes of Ashes to Ashes, starring Keeley Hawes, Philip Glenister, Dean Andrews, Marshall Lancaster, and Montserrat Lombard, and plans to launch the series in March 2009.

Ashes to Ashes, from creators Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharoah, is set after the events of Life on Mars. The series follows Detective Inspector Alex Drake (Hawes), a London police profiler who finds herself seemingly sent back in time to 1981 after she's shot in the head. In 1981, she comes face to face with none other than Gene Hunt (Glenister), whom Alex recognizes from Sam Tyler's descriptions after his "return" to the present day, and becomes enmeshed in solving the mystery of who murdered her parents, even as she attempts to return home to her young daughter. Hunt, meanwhile, has left Manchester--along with flunkies Ray (Andrews) and Chris (Lancaster)--and transferred to the Metropolitan Police in London. (He's also traded in the old Cortina for a red Audi Quatro.)

While I've already seen the outstanding first season of Ashes to Ashes in full (click here to read my review of the first episode and my very spoiler-laden review of the first season finale), I am thrilled that BBC America will finally air this brilliant and nail-biting series. And I'm hoping--given the acquisition of the sixteen episodes comprising Seasons One and Two--that BBC America will air the two seasons of Ashes to Ashes consecutively as they have with fellow imports Skins and Gavin & Stacey.

UPDATE: BBC America has confirmed to me that they will be airing Season One and Season Two of Ashes to Ashes back-to-back.

Ashes to Ashes is set to launch on BBC America in March 2009.

Fictional Constructs and New Romantics: Burning Questions from "Ashes to Ashes"

What with ABC's adaptation of Life on Mars entering its fourth week (though, as I said earlier, the ratings are not good for the imported format), I thought it was time once again to tackle my thoughts about BBC One's spin-off of Life on Mars, entitled Ashes to Ashes, which began production on its second season earlier this month.

I had reviewed the premiere episode of Ashes to Ashes when it first aired on BBC One in February, but since then I've had the opportunity to watch all eight episodes of Ashes' first season and fall under its 1980's New Romantics-influenced spell.

What is Ashes to Ashes about? Like its parent series, Ashes to Ashes follows a modern-day detective seemingly sent back in time after experiencing a life-threatening trauma. In this case, the detective is DI Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes), a forensic psychologist who interviewed Sam Tyler before his suicide. When Alex is shot in the head by a stringy-haired perp singing David Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes," she is seemingly propelled backwards in time to 1981, a few months before the death of her parents in a car bomb, where she encounters the familiar face of Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister). Like Mars' Sam Tyler, Alex has a distinct reason for doing everything in her power to return to the present day: her daughter Molly (Grace Vance) is alone and Alex may be seconds away from dying.

Ashes to Ashes manages to be both more humorous and more sinister than Life on Mars. Like Life on Mars' Test Card Girl, Ashes to Ashes has its own spectre haunting the subconscious of Alex Drake: the terrifying visage of the Clown (Andrew Clover), an Angel of Death who resembles Bowie's appearance in the music video of "Ashes to Ashes."

So crank up some David Bowie and Roxy Music on your iPod as we dive into some burning questions left over from Ashes to Ashes' brilliant first season. (WARNING: for those of you who haven't yet seen the series, proceed with caution as there are major spoilers for Season One after the jump.)

My very first question, after watching the full first season of Ashes to Ashes, naturally concerns the first season's ending... in which we learn that Young Alex had met Gene Hunt before, seconds after witnessing the death of her parents and that it had been Gene's hand (and not Evan's) that she had gripped in the hallucinatory memory flashes Alex kept experiencing.

The fact that she knew Gene in the past is significant: if Gene was actually in Alex's past, then he must be a real person and is not, as Alex keeps maintaining, a fictional construct. So is he real? And, if so, is he still alive in 2008? Alex has believed that 1981 is a series of puzzles devised by her subconscious to keep her mind struggling to survive rather than succumb to the darkness and cold of death. Has she then always carried a memory of Gene Hunt around in her subconscious, unaware of his significance in her life? Is this world a puzzle for her psyche as it resists shutting down or has she really traveled back into time?

I had figured out both the Clown's identity and the motive behind Alex's parents death a few episodes before the season finale. Watching as her father put "Ashes to Ashes" on the cassette player, Alex is stunned to see him remove his glasses and transform into the Clown seconds before the car explodes. So my question is this: did Alex again *always* subconsciously know that her father had planned to kill her and her mother in a pathetic murder-suicide as payback for her mother's affair with Evan? I'd suggest that she did and that her memory filled in the blanks in her subconscious that she had successfully managed to repress for so many years.

But if the Clown is her father and an Angel of Death, why did Shaz (Montserrat Lombard) see him rather than another personification of death when she was nearly fatally stabbed in the series' seventh episode ("Charity Begins at Home")? And is the Clown still significant now that Alex knows who he actually is? Is his power over her now nonexistent now that she's peeled away the mask from his face and seen the skull beneath the skin?

I had always thought it was interesting that the song that was playing when Alex woke up in 1981 wasn't Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes" but rather Ultravox's "Vienna," which is why I was so glad to see that the writers saved that song for the moment of her parents' death, a soundtrack to their demise that makes it far more iconic and significant to Alex and alludes to why she sees her father as the Pierrot Clown rather than in some other incarnation.

Lastly, as I mentioned earlier, Gene Hunt is an actual physical person in Alex's life as a child, so is he the reason that she was pulled backwards to 1981 and why Sam Tyler was pulled back to 1973? In both cases, Alex and Sam arrived in the past just prior to a critical incident in their lives that lead to their psychological development as adults. And yet in both cases Gene Hunt was on the scene, despite Mars taking place in Manchester and Ashes in London.

So, why is Gene significant in both their stories? And is Gene more than just a common link but a means for them to latch onto that particular point in time? And is it important that in 1981, Gene is struggling to maintain relevant in a world that is changing around him? If Sam thought that 1973 was his Oz, is 1981 Alex's Narnia, a journey to understand the critical incidents that defined them later as adults? For Sam, it's a need to follow the word of the law, to enforce the concept of justice. For Alex, it's the need to find logic and meaning in the criminals she chases, to understand the flaws in their psychology... even as all along she's been trying to discover what deficiency in her father's makeup lead to him seeking to obliterate his entire family.

And how does this connect to Arthur Layton, the man who created the car bomb that killed Tim and Caroline and who Alex arrested in the first episode of the season? The man who, I might add, shot Alex in the present day... after calling an unseen person. Just who does Layton call as he leads Alex away? ("I've got a piece of your past standing right here in front of me. Tim and Caroline Price's daughter. And I'm going to tell her the truth about why her parents died... Well, that's your choice.") His words seem to perhaps indicate it's Evan, but what if it's someone else altogether different? Some other force at work perhaps? A sign of something else yet to come?

Sadly, there's no news as to if or when BBC America will air Ashes to Ashes in the States, but stay tuned. BBC One will launch Season Two of Ashes to Ashes in the UK in early 2009.

Channel Surfing: FX Cancels "The Riches," "Pushing Daisies," Ratings Dim for "Friday Night Lights," "Ashes to Ashes," and More

Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. While everyone is buzzing about last night's presidential debate, there are more than a few television-related news tidbits to discuss as well.

Following several months of discussions, FX has confirmed that it will not be renewing drama series The Riches for a third season, due to falling ratings for the drama. In its second season, which was shortened to seven episodes due to the writers strike, viewers dropped 44 percent in the key 18-49 demo. The move is hardly a surprise: showrunner Dmitry Lipkin is currently working on his HBO pilot project Hung and I had assumed for a while now that The Riches would sadly not be returning to the cabler. (Variety)

TV Guide talks to Pushing Daisies star Lee Pace about what to expect for Season Two, a certain game of "slap jack" between Ned and Chuck that never made it to the screen, and the Pie Maker's family. (TV Guide)

Sadly, there might not have been a new episode of Fringe last night but you can still get some hints about The Pattern and what's going on with Walter, Olivia, and Peter in this handy video from Fringe's executive producers Alex Kurtzman, Jeff Pinkner, and Roberto Orci. (FOX)

Only 400,000 viewers tuned in to watch the third season opener of Friday Night Lights, which debuted on DirecTV's The 101; series will run exclusively on the satellite provider for four months before launching its third season on NBC in February. Granted, DirecTV only counts 17.1 million subscribers overall but that's still extremely low, as Friday Night Lights only ranked in 7th place among all basic cable programs available to its subscribers. (New York Times)

Writer/executive producer David E. Kelley and Warner Bros. are shopping a spec script for a new one-hour legal drama. CBS and NBC said to be extremely interesting in picking up the project, which is expected to land a significant commitment. (Hollywood Reporter)

Fire up the Quattro. Filming has begun on Season Two of BBC One's Life on Mars spinoff sequel Ashes to Ashes, which stars Keeley Hawes, Philip Glenister, Dean Andrews, Marshall Lancaster, and Montserrat Lombard. In the second season, Alex (Hawes) will discover that she may not be the only one in 1982 in her, uh, predicament. (BBC)

TBS has renewed comedy My Boys for a third season, with nine episodes set to air in early 2009. (Variety)

HBO has cast Bryan Greenberg (October Road) and Victor Rasuk (Stop-Loss) as the leads of its single-camera comedy pilot How to Make It in America, from writer Ian Edelman and executive producers Stephen Levinson and Mark Wahlberg. Project revolves around two twenty-something NYC hustlers who are determined to grab a slice of the American dream. Julian Farino (The Office) will direct the pilot. (Hollywood Reporter)

Jack Kenny (Book of Daniel) has joined the staff of Sci Fi's upcoming drama series Warehouse 13 as showrunner/executive producer, a move that reunites Kenny with his former Book of Daniel colleague David Simkins. Warehouse 13, which stars Eddie McClintock, Joanne Kelly, and Saul Rubinek, is set to launch in July 2009. (Hollywood Reporter)

Stay tuned.

Afterlife on Mars: "Ashes to Ashes"

If there's been one series that I've been dying to see since I first heard about it, it would be the BBC's Ashes to Ashes, a spin-off from its groundbreaking drama Life on Mars, which launched last week to about 7 million viewers in the UK.

Sadly, it's going to be a long time until US audiences can catch the further story of DCI Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister), here partnered with tough 21st century profiler Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes), as BBC America, home to Life on Mars in the States, has yet to acquire Ashes to Ashes and has no air date for it.

But television waits for no man and, fortunately for this TV devotee, I was able to get my hands on the superlative premiere episode of Ashes to Ashes just days after its UK premiere. So was the wait worth it to find out just what happened to Life on Mars' Sam Tyler (John Simm)? And just what is this series about? Let's discuss.

Ashes to Ashes not only lives up to its pre-launch hype and the promise of Life on Mars, it turns that series on its ear, injecting more humor, sexual tension, and dread into its period drama than the former. Single mum and forensic psychologist DI Alex Drake has found herself in an even more precarious situation than Sam Tyler; while Tyler was in a comatose state during his stay in 1973, surrounded by carers in a hospital, Alex is clinging to life after being shot by her deranged kidnapper. She is alone, underground, she is dying... and she has woken up, dressed as a prostitute in 1981. (In a nifty bit of dread, she writes notes about her current hallucinatory state on a dry-erase board and inadvertently writes the word DEAD when asked what this means about her current state.)

It's not long before she encounters DCI Gene Hunt, now reassigned to London, along with DS Ray Carling (Dean Andrews) and DC Chris Skelton (Marshall Lancaster). While Sam was confused about whether he had gone mad, was in a coma, or had traveled back to 1973, Alex is more self-aware. For one, she worked with Sam during his "return" to 2006 prior to his suicide (yes, you read that correctly) and had read his case files; Alex knows that this world is somehow a construct of her subconscious. Yet somehow it's also connected to her past. While Sam returned to 1973 Manchester (the time and place of his father's disappearance from his childhood), Alex has turned up in 1981 London, just prior to her parents' death by car bomb. In both cases, Gene Hunt is a central figure and both Sam and Alex have been "transferred" to his department.

So who is Gene Hunt? Is he real or an imaginary figure? I'm not quite sure yet but the man is definitely back this time and age hasn't changed him one bit or mellowed his gruff sensibility. This time 'round, there's a nice bit of sexual tension between him and Alex. I am not sure why he figures so prominently into Sam and Alex's psychic escape route but Alex correctly surmises that this is her subconscious giving her a puzzle to solve so everything--including Gene--is essential to solving this inner riddle.

Also essential are the memories, regrets, and bizarre hallucinations that Alex experiences: everything from the memory of her parents' death to television characters Zippy and George... and the terrifying visage of the Pierrot clown (which echoes David Bowie in his "Ashes to Ashes" video). The clown is far scarier than Life on Mars' Test Card Girl and outright chilling as he runs at full-speed down an alley at a screaming Alex.... or speaks to her with her daughter's voice.

As for the final fate of Life on Mars' Sam Tyler, there's a definitive answer about his status in the past as well as a further mystery. Alex learns that Sam did return to 1973 (following his suicide in 2006), he did save the gang from those gunmen (as seen in the series finale), and remained there for seven years. He was killed in 1980 when he drove his car into the river during a car chase... but a body was never recovered. As for the fate of Annie Cartwright (Liz White), it's unclear what happened to her after Sam's death but I do hope that an encounter between Alex and Annie isn't impossible.

Ashes to Ashes definitely lured me in from its opening moments and had me hooked during its entire one-hour duration. Hawes (Spooks, aka MI-5) is a fantastic lead and exudes both gutsy confidence and psychic vulnerability. Like Sam, her Alex is determined, methodical, and at her wits' end. But she's also psychologically aware, not only of the world she has perhaps created, but also her proximity to death. And when she records a message for her daughter in the future, you are struck with the palpable sense that she will figure out a way to wake herself up in 2008 and survive her attack.

Glenister again nearly steals every scene he's in as Gene; his introduction in Ashes to Ashes is a thing of beauty as he and his gang drive up in a blood-red Audi Quatro and he steps out and removes his sunglasses like a thuggish rock star. It's a sight to behold, as is that of Gene, Chris, and Ray speeding down the Thames in a boat and clicking their firearms in place. (Miami Vice, eat your heart out.)

It's good to have these guys back on television and while it seems as though their characters haven't grown or changed in the "seven years" since we last saw them, it's clear that some things have changed. Sam's influence and his affect are clearly felt: Gene keeps newspaper clippings about Sam's death on his office building board. Chris, while still cautious, has learned from Sam and acts with a newly gained confidence, even flirting openly with the team's sole female member, Shazza (Love Soup's Montserrat Lombard). And Ray... he's still just as pigheaded, thick, and misogynistic as he ever was.

As for me, I am hopelessly head over heels in love with Ashes to Ashes. And while I wish I had more promising news about when this smart, slick, stylish drama will make it to these shores, all I can say is (to echo the words of the great Bowie himself): I'm happy, hope you're happy too. You will be whenever Ashes to Ashes finally makes it to air over here.

Over the Rainbow: The "Life on Mars" Series Finale

Oh. My. God.

I don't even know where to begin after watching last night's final installment of Brit import Life on Mars, one of the most gripping, thrilling, and jaw-dropping series finales (or series, full stop) around.

While I knew that the writers--Matthew Graham, along with Tony Jordan and Ashley Pharoah--wanted to tie things up in the strange, strange life of Detective Inspector Sam Tyler, I had no idea the lengths Sam would go to in order to return to 2006, who he would betray, and what mechanism by which he'd catapult himself out of his future coma-state.

If the above sentence made any sense to you, you're obviously a Life on Mars fan. If not, you've missed out on a series, which over the course of sixteen episodes, redefined genre television, blending science fiction, cop drama, romance, metaphysical drama into one groovy package and populating it with a cast of characters that proved themselves misogynistic, racist, pigheaded... and yet having a sort of primal dignity that was impossible to look away from. Simply put: this series rocked like vintage Bowie.

It was no surprise that Sam did manage to get home but what a long, strange road it was to that darkened tunnel. Would Sam betray Gene and "A" Division to the ruthless machinations of Frank Morgan, a man hellbent on making an example of Gene Hunt and bringing order to the chaos of the Manchester constabulary? Would he make it back to 2006? Would he be able to say goodbye to Annie?

All of these questions were answered in a fashion with last night's episode, a heart-pounding installment that made the audience question everything we've been told about Sam Tyler since the start and which bookended the series with its first episode in dizzying, brilliant fashion. We learn from Frank Morgan that Sam is in fact an undercover officer from Hyde, sent to
infiltrate Gene's team as part of Operation: MARS (Metropolitan Accountability and Reconciliation Strategy); his real name is Sam Williams. Or is it?

Just as Sam begins to question his true identity and is willing to sell out Gene and his colleagues, he undergoes an operation in the future to remove a tumor that is keeping him in his coma. Is Gene the manifestation of this cancer in his dream state? Sam believes so and gives over evidence to Frank Morgan that would lead to Gene's pensioning and dismissal from the force; Morgan promises him that he can come home to Hyde, a promise made all the more real by what Morgan reveals: that Sam had been in a car accident on the way to Manchester, that he had been in a fugue state before when he was in a bus crash at age 12, and that everything that was happening here was very much real.

Faced with the choice to save the team from their demises at the hands of a psychotic cop-killer (presaged by a telephone call last episode) or the chance to return home, Sam chooses the latter and wakes up in 2006... to discover that Frank Morgan is his surgeon. While Morgan was able to remove the pressure from his brain, the tumor was inoperable but is benign. (Which begs the question then if the tumor was what caused him to time-travel or if it was all a dream.) The hospital room where Sam laying all this time? Hyde Ward, Room 2612, the same combination (Hyde 2612) as the phone number Sam was trying to call earlier in the episode (and from which several of his ominous calls derived).

A brief aside: I'll let you count out the many, many references to The Wizard of Oz that have filled this series, including last night's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," but I will say this: it's no coincidence that Frank Morgan, the surgeon/copper played by Meadowlands' Ralph Brown, is also the name of the actor who played the titular character in The Wizard of Oz...

Returning to work, Sam discovers that he cannot relate to his coworkers nor can he feel anything, such as when he cuts his finger during a meeting (recalling bartender Nelson's words that to feel pain is to know you're alive) and promptly--and to the tune of David Bowie's "Life on Mars"--throws himself off of the building, an echo of the series' first episode in which Sam nearly jumped off a roof in order to free himself from 1973.

Does Sam die? That's a matter of conjecture. But he does suddenly return to 1973 to the precise moment in time when he faced that earlier choice. This time, he chooses to save his dying friends, felling the villain with a few precise gunshots. And later, he finally gets to confess his love for Annie (yay!), telling her that he's staying "forever" and asks her to tell him what to do ("stay here"), before embracing her in a climactic kiss that we've all been waiting sixteen episodes to see and which echoes their conversation from the series' first episode.

Gene, Chris, and Ray have all survived the debacle at the train (engineered by Frank Morgan to lead to their deaths to further discredit the department), and the fivesome climb into the back of the Cortina before driving off into the afterlife, down that yellow brick road, as it were. But not before Sam switches the radio from the sounds of the EMTs trying to save him ("It's no good, he's slipping away from us")... to Bowie's "Life on Mars," a deliberate choice on his part to choose this "dream" over reality, over death, over the end.

Was the psychic pain of his "suicide" enough to propel him back to 1973... or is this Sam's dream state, his own personal Oz, experienced in the moments as his brain shuts down in the back of an ambulance in 2006? The answer is deliberately, deliciously vague and left to the audience to decipher. (Though I did get goosebumps when the little girl in red--the Girl from the Test Card--appeared and turned off the "television," signaling the end of the series.)

As for this jaded writer, I choose to believe that Sam did die in 2006 after coming out of his coma... and lived in 1973, in a state of suspended animation. I want to believe that he did finally find love with the adorable Annie and that in order to survive, both Sam and Gene--two sides of the same coin--need each other, to push each other into changing themselves and the world around them. What better place to bring about real change then, then the front lines of policing in the 1970s? What better ending for a crusading copper than to drive off into the twilight to fight crime?

Of course, some of the truth of Sam's condition must come in the form of Life on Mars' sequel, entitled Ashes to Ashes (again, deriving its title from a Bowie song), which picks up the story of Gene, Chris, and Ray in the 1980s as they come into contact with Alex Drake (MI5/Spooks' Keeley Hawes), a female detective who has traveled back to 1981 after reading Sam's case files. A look at the promo for the series, due later this year on BBC1, can be found below.

But don't expect to find Sam Tyler in Ashes to Ashes; his story has already been told and actor John Simm sadly won't be appearing in the sequel. But from the looks of that gorgeous promo and the fact that I am already experiencing withdrawal pains from Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes can't arrive on these shores quickly enough.