Howdy gamers, as you may have read previously, I've finished Ashes to Ashes and by extension the Life on Mars cinematic universe. If you didn't read this previously, you may want to get caught up before we get into it: Life On Mars & A2A Season 1, A2A Season 2.

And here we are again, back for a brand new round of supernatural policing in the past, and play the shitty games that suck ass. When we last left our friend Alex Drake, she had been shot and fell into a coma... and then woke up from a coma? Or maybe she's in a new, second coma, like Inception, nobody's really sure what's going on and it's been a season cliffhanger for a while. Well, good news, it's 2025 and all the episodes are out at this point, so there's no waiting!

Season 3's first episode opens with a unique show intro! "My name is Alex Drake, and quite frankly, your guess is as good as mine."

The episode proper starts with Alex Drake talking to a therapist about her experiences in her Coma in a similar way to how Sam was in the last episode of Life on Mars. She questions if 1980's London was real, and is asked if she's still dreaming about "Him," which if you haven't been paying attention is definitely Gene. She says the real world doesn't feel as real as the one she just left, and that Sam felt it too. The therapist reminds her that Sam is dead and in response she goes to an electronics store to look at DVD's.

She picks up a DVD showing her BFF's on it titled "Lethal Force," which spooks her enough to wander off to another part of the store. As she walks by the TV displays, suddenly the channel changes and it's Ray talking to her begging her to wake up, he's got a new kidnapping case and Gene's in hiding and Ray needs help. It flips through similar scenes for Chris and Shaz. Chris reveals it's been three months since Gene accidentally shot her, and that he and Shaz had a breakup that they both knew was for the best. Shaz doesn't reveal anything new but she definitely wants Alex to wake up too.

Suddenly, a new challenger appears. We don't know his name but he seems to think Gene shot her on purpose! Oh well, I'm sure that's not going to be important.

Then, after flipping through everybody begging her to wake up, Gene suddenly pops up, and Alex starts to run out of the store in a panic.

Suddenly, Alex is in what looks like a jail cell, but looking out she can see herself in the hospital. But the 2008 hospital, so Coma #1. There's a news report on about how they found a body of a murdered cop that may have been there for decades. Then, jumpscare! A ghost of a cop with a horrific face wound appears behind Alex and startles her. Straight up haunting.

Before she can really get a reaction in, Gene slaps her awake from her 1980's coma. Ah, it was Inception after all! Also apparently all you need to do to get someone to wake up from a coma is give 'em a good slap. As Gene and Alex catch up a little, Alex says "let's fire up the Quattro" and some lights flicker on and a sheet mysteriously slides off of Gene's Audi Quattro, the sports car he's been driving the whole show. I think it's fair to say The Quattro becomes a much more integral part of the show this season. The duo make their grand re-entrance to the department and find Ray in Gene's office doing his best to keep it together. Everyone's pretty surprised to see them. Ray's a little pissed off that he was running the show for months and Gene waltzes in like nothing's happened & doesn't even get a good job about it.

Soon, the mystery man who was talking to Alex on the TV in the electronics store arrives, we learn that he's DCI Jim Keats, and he's with Discipline and Complaints and he's here to write a big scary report. Get ready to see alot of this guy, he very quickly settles in as the season's Antagonist. The trio, Jim, Alex, and Gene, have dinner to sort out all the unpleasantness of an accidental police-involved shooting, tells Gene to go home for a few days while he gets the "it was an accident" info up the chain, then goes and quotes the bible. At the end of this scene, Jim notices his watch has stopped at 9:06, which was the time on the wall clock in Alex's 2008 hospital room during her out of body experience.

This dominates the first 20 minutes of episode 1. They're putting in the work to make the season 3 arc matter. But you know what, now we have to focus on the kidnapping going on. This is your standard LOM/A2A crime, someone did something fucked up but there's layers of deception. Without getting too much into the weeds of it, we learn there's a suspect who's in the hospital with severe burns and brain damage from a getaway car crash that found religion in jail, then later learn that's a different guy altogether and the original suspect got away and is laying low and is likely the criminal. The way Alex figures this out is that the burned man reaches for a rosary, but the guy who found religion inside was a methodist. OH ALSO turns out this guy used to date the kidnapped girl's stepmom. Some real Revolver Ocelot shit going on in this one. After everything's solved, Gene finally says Good Job to Ray, even though Ray had fucked up real bad earlier and ruined a sting operation.

Jim Keats walks in. Remember that guy? He brings in some champagne to celebrate a case well solved and announces he's investigating but he has "a soft spot for the old ways" which I'm pretty sure is not true. He then immediately walks into Gene's office and goes "hey you asshole, I hate your guts and I'm gonna fuck your department up by investigating"

The new implication hanging in the air by the end of Episode 1 is that Gene killed Sam Tyler and covered it up. This is what drives most of the Season 3 story arc. Keats is constantly talking Alex into looking into it further, getting evidence sent down from Manchester, all that stuff. It works to erode Alex and Gene's relationship throughout.

I guess they figured this was Too Much In One Go and they needed some comic relief, so Episode 2 starts with an Ashes to Ashes Billy Joel Music Video. Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes do not usually get this goofy- sure, there's the occasional funny thing that happens, but it's usually pretty serious in tone, so this caught me completely off guard. Also, Gene takes a moment to toss a wrench up in the air and does NOT catch it cleanly in the take they used, just the small things like this tickle me a little.

Ashes to Ashes, barrelling towards it's finale, has also made a very important and long overdue decision: It's time we learned about who Chris, Ray, and Shaz are a little more. I feel like Chris and Ray don't get much in the way of backstory during Life on Mars, so Shaz is only slightly behind them in terms of how much we know.

Starting from Episode 2, we're gonna learn. Episode 2's subplot belongs to Shaz, who is having a crisis about whether or not she actually likes being a police officer. The murderer of the week seems to be using a dating service to find his victims, who are all recently divorced women.

Shaz's story shakes out as follows:

She seems irritated, has a heart to heart with Alex on a park bench about how she feels off lately, and she thinks it's because she's not cut out to be a cop. Her main complaint seems to be that she's tired of all the sexism and I think that's a reasonable feeling to have. The next day, the gang is out investigating and discovers a dead body in a field, and Shaz runs off upset. Alex invents Speed Dating to try and draw out the perp. Shaz, out a bit later, sees a bunch of teens causing a ruckus with knives and bandanas, and tries to stop them, but they threaten her and she has a breakdown. As a result, she decides to quit. Gene swoops in with "one last job" for her to go on a date with a guy that has terminal cancer that they think might be the killer. She reluctantly agrees and wow what do you know he IS the killer, and when he attacks, Shaz stabs him with a flathead screwdriver that's been laying on the ground. I'm not sure about you but this would not make me want to rescind my resignation from a very dangerous job, but for Shaz it does. Even though she runs away from where she got attacked sobbing, the next day she's back at it and more confident than ever, and accepts when Gene asks her to come back.

The next episode focuses on Ray. There's a series of politically-motivated arsons going on, and Ray rushes into one to save someone. A firefighter rescues him, but then that firefighter ends up being a suspect. Ray, owing his life to this guy, doesn't believe he could possibly be an arsonist. The firefigher in question is a veteran who fought in the Falklands and has some real bad PTSD, and by the way his brother and wife are fucking behind his back. Clues that it may be him include: the reporter that interviewed him for the paper is a target. Chosen because he didn't print all the stuff about the horrors of war that were in the interview.

We mostly learn about Ray's history in one scene at the end, where he uses the leverage as the firefighter's new friend to spill his guts and distract him, keeping him from lighting his house on fire with him and his wife in it. Ray explains that he's from a histories military family, that he wanted to join, but got so drunk the night before that he missed the interview. He says at the time he used a local soccer match victory as a cover for it, but really he was just scared. Ray joined the police as a fallback career, and how it always felt like it was never good enough for his father. Relevant as well since the Eagles just won that football thing. Sorta fills in why he wants to hear "Good job Ray" from Gene so badly. He tells this story, then tries to have a cigarette, and uses a lighter he knows doesn't work. He's gotten some sympathy from the Firefighter about his life story, and now all he has to do is use that to get the lighter out of this guy's hands. It works and they get an arrest in. All in all, it's the most cunning bit of police work we've ever seen from Ray, who's portrayed as a bit of a moron most of the time. This is not *all* of Ray's backstory, but we don't get the last little bit until the final episode.

Chris.... ah, Chris, Chris's is a bit different, there's less focus on it than Shaz and Ray's storylines. We've already gotten some focus on Chris last season, particularly on how he was taking mysterious orders from a guy on the phone. Through his subplot, Chris falls in love with an undercover police officer from another neighboring precinct, her name is Louise. The group Louise's infiltrated just so happens to run into Gene's squad and Gene recognizes her, but is pissed that he had to find out the hard way and that the neighboring precinct hasn't given him a heads up about it. Gene, the big brain genius he is, tries to make contact with Louise where she's undercover, which might be the stupidest thing he does across all five seasons of both shows. The crime family she's working with immediately figures it out and kicks her ass, since Gene has a history with the family patriarch. Louise pops up in the police station covered in blood, needing help, and we learn her DCI has basically abandoned her. Chris is developing a crush on Louise and, Shaz seems to notice even though they're broken up now. Nothing really comes of Shaz noticing but it's interesting they put it there at all. Chris and Louise are having dinner and drinks at Luigi's and Louise tries to explain that the person he's sitting with now isn't the real her, then implies to Chris that she was raped, and Chris flies off the handle and kicks the crime family's son's ass in a cell. Alex has to be like "Chris, you stupid fucking asshole, a judge is going to let him go and he's gonna go after Louise now." and you know what, she's right. At Alex's apartment Louise is spending the night, and the crime family breaks in, knocks Alex out, and kidnaps Louise. Meanwhile, Shaz figures out that Louise's reports aren't getting filed properly, since her reports often refer back to reports on dates that don't have reports, she realizes there are a bunch of them missing and that Louise's DCI is probably intentionally not filing them.... because he's being paid off by the crime family, surprise! Apparently the crime family knew Louise was undercover all along, and her DCI looking the other way was a part of a deal they struck up. But also, it seems like Louise's true allegiances are with the crime family? A rare L in this otherwise excellent season, I feel like this part was underexplained. In a final showdown with everybody, chaos ensues and Louise is killed when she gets hit by a van. For some strange reason, Jim Keats is the one who's comforting her as she dies, telling her it's okay and not to move and all that. I'm sure that doesn't mean anything. It struck me as very strange and then I remembered the show is called Ashes to Ashes, and I started to suspect I knew where the show is going. And, in a rare showing of sympathy, or if you look at it another way, an unprecedented moment of corruption, from DCI Keats, he tells Chris he will be filing a report about the Police Brutality he did that says it was self-defense (it very much was not).

The next episode is probably has the least impact in the overall season story, so I'll be quick, two of Gene's former colleagues from Manchester are looking for a comedian because they say he stole money from the police widow's fund. This as it turns out is not true, and the comedian witnessed one of those colleagues doing a police brutality so hard that he killed someone, and that's the reason he's on the run in London. Because these guys are from Manchester, the subplot focus here is Alex trying to learn more about what happened to Sam, and how there's a police fundraiser dinner going on and Chris is learning to Breakdance and Ray wants to sing O Danny Boy but he's nervous about it. They get the comedian to play the fundraiser dinner and use this to bait the corrupt Manchester cop.

Episode 6 is where we start ramping up to the ending. There's a riot at the prison. Viv, a black man who runs alot of the administrative stuff in the station like the cells and the evidence room, goes in and gets left behind. Viv, up until now, has been mostly a likable background character, sort of equivalent to Phyllis in Life on Mars, they both get an equivalent amount of screen time I think up until today. There is so much happening in this episode. Viv is taken hostage by the prisoners. A former cellmate of the prison riot leader gets pulled in so they can try and get some information out of him, but he claims to be Sam Tyler and even does the whole "Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time?" speech at Alex. He puts in alot of work to try and convince Alex that he's really Sam Tyler. He also says that Viv's not really a hostage, Viv has a cousin that's in prison, and he struck up a deal with the prisoners so that they would have a gun. Alex isn't buying that he's Sam, but while she's grilling him for info, Chris and Ray go in undercover as Journalists. They get sniffed out basically immediately and are now also hostages. Turns out the leader of the prisoners decided to not honor his end of the deal and Viv really is a hostage. The throughline for the riot, really is that Sacks, the leader, wants to be a legend for killing cops. Now he's got three, and when Viv tries to fight back all three of them get wired up to some cell bars with electricity, setting a trap when the rest of the police force storms in. Gene manages to get this out of Fake Sam, so they know enough to smash the breaker box before the other cops can get inside. In the ensuing chaos, Sacks takes Viv off somewhere private and shoots him. Viv lays dying in a hallway, Gene trying to find him while talking to him on the radio. Suspiciously, Jim gets to him first, and once again a troubled cop dies in Jim Keats arms. This one's different though, there's not much comforting. A single shush and Jim grabs Viv's face and stares menacingly into his eyes as he dies. At this point I think that they're screaming the subtext as loud as they can, and I definitely know that Jim Keats is essentially the devil in the world of cop afterlife. Everyone shows up to find Viv already dead in Jim's arms, and everyone's really bummed about it.

The death of Viv has everyone on edge. Over the course of the penultimate and some of the ultimate episode, Gene loses the trust of his squad. Gene's got no idea how to grieve properly so he snaps at everyone. The plot for 7, the penultimate episode, starts with a disturbance at an illegal ANC drinking den, and while checking it out Ray discovers a dead body. They sorta don't get into it in detail, but it would make sense for ANC here to refer to the African National Congress, a political party in South Africa that would have been exiled during this period and had been classified as a terrorist organization in the 80s during apartheid.

Your homework before you read any further is to take a break from the ramblings of a dog that likes TV, and get some global political history under your belt. Go on, I'll wait. It might illucidate something for you about the mess the US is in currently or what Israel has been doing to Palestine for 40 fucking years. Whoever domes Elon Musk will be a hero.

Back to the episode, there's about sixty suspects currently jammed into the police station. Ray and Shaz head back to the scene of the crime and find a bunch of forged paperwork and what looks to be the murder weapon, which causes the girl they're interviewing, Tsitsi, to panic. She's covered in blood under her jacket, as it turns out. This forces a confession out of their leader, Tobias. Ah, but there's a twist, the dead man was an undercover Special Branch guy trying to figure out if ANC was building bombs. Jim breaks the news to Gene and tells him Special Branch wants Tobias, and Gene goes Malicious Compliance and asks for the forms to be signed and dated before he can do that. Chris spends the night guarding the cells. Ray and Shaz go investigate their lead suspect's apartment. Jim Hunt writes Chris, Ray, and Shaz's names on some VHS tapes and smirks ominously. Alex and Gene have dinner, and she tries to grill Gene about Sam but he's not having it. Chris talks to Tobais, who says he didn't do it and Tsitsi is safely on a flight out of London. Tobias recalls how he was a teacher and all his students were killed during a demonstration. Ray and Shaz find dynamite in Tobias's apartment, hidden in a hole in the wall behind a poster. Sounds kinda incriminating actually! While interrogating him, a guy who has an accent that sounds White South African shows up and accuses him of a very old muder and calls him Joshua, AND at the same time a bomb goes off at the South African Embassy. While everyone else checks out the scene of the embassy, Chris spends time with Tobias in the cells, and Tobias says he confiscated the dynamite and he thinks Tsitsi might've taken some on her way out of the country. Chris makes an important decision and sets Tobias free. Gene flies off the handle and they have a fistfight, you know how it is with hotheaded cops. As the night progresses, everyone cools off, Tobias finds Chris on a park bench, thanks him, and vanishes. Gene's at Luigi's, bummed out about snapping at Chris and how his department is falling apart, so Alex tries to talk to him. Shaz and Ray remind Gene he's been a bit of an asshole to Chris the last few months, and right as that happens Chris walks back in and is like "it won't happen again, but I won't be a doormat anymore" and offers a handshake. Gene, in an unexpected moment of tenderness pulls Chris in for a hug. Chris, for a second, hears music and Nelson, owner of the Railway Rarms from Life on Mars saying "what're you having?" and Ray and Shaz say they've had that happen before.

Gene goes up to Alex's apartment above Luigi's and have a few drinks and start dancing, suddenly Jim shows up with some photos that were developed off a roll of film Alex found in Gene's office. On the back of one it says "I think we found our grave" which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, you can't write on the back of a print before the photos are developed.

The episode ends with Chris, Shaz, and Ray walking home, suddenly the three of them are greeted by a vision of the cosmos, as each of them and Alex have experienced previously but separately & therefore afraid to talk about it to eachother, and Alex running off with the photos while Gene is still hiding in her bedroom.

After all this, we've made it. Season 3 is coming to a close, and the show along with it. It's time to find out what the FUCK is going on here.

Alex wakes up from a goofy nightmare where a big mascot costume version of Gene is chasing her, wearing a big mascot costume of herself. Sort of Takeshi's Castle vibes in this scene. Molly shouts for her to run from the stands. She wakes up in the police station at her desk. Suddenly, a crimescene! Gene is there, he seems quite irritated that Alex bailed on him in her own apartment. One of the victims is, as it turns out not actually dead, which makes Gene extremely fucking angry. Back at the station, everyone's saying how it's not been the same since Viv died.

Alex, talking to Jim, wonders out loud why Gene would even kill Sam, how that doesn't make any sense, and how she knows Sam is dead but she's not. Jim obviously being the antagonist does antagonist shit to try and talk her down from her line of thinking and sow more dissent.

The episode's crimesolving progresses for a bit. Chris hears a police whistle and it spooks him, it's been happening for a few days. Alex and Gene have a few arguments, Alex ends up driving out to the farmhouse in the grave photo she got, the one that was on TV in her hospital room. Back at the station, Gene has another argument with Keats and runs off to chase down Alex, and Keats walks in with those oh so mysterious VHS tapes.

Ray finds that a phone number written on a guy's hand is a flight attendant, heads over there, finds she's been murdered. She was apparently working with some dutch gem smugglers.

Alex arrives at the farmhouse, wanders out to a scarecrow in a field. The scarecrow has the numer 6620 on it, a number that's been featured in numerous coincidences Alex has run into all season, carved into a desk, written on a wall, including being on the arm of the ghost that shows up with a big face wound. While Alex stares at it, Gene shows up. Alex asks Gene to tell her it's not Sam.

She gets digging. Gene's not happy about that and points a gun at her and says to stop. She doesn't.

What we learn from here on out gets super interesting. This body isn't Sam's. Alex picks up the police badge she finds on the body and.... the badge belongs to Gene. Gene Hunt is dead. Gene reacts to this in a way that implies he's forgotten that he's dead. He recalls dying on coronation day in the 50's, his first week on the police force. Gene hears a break-in at this farmhouse and kicks the door down, gets his dumb ass blasted by a shotgun. Gene confirms he had forgotten the circumstances around his death, and as we soon learn he's not the only one. Keats appears out of nowhere in the farmhouse. Where'd he come from? How peculiar!

Alex wonders where here is. Keats asks Gene to elucidate. Gene explains that this is sort of a cop afterlife - a place you go to "sort things out" for cops who had troublesome deaths. Keats argues that the people here are imprisoned, Ray, Chris, Shaz, Alex, Sam, Annie. Gene explains he helped Sam move on to the afterlife after he came back. Keats does some more manipulation and says Gene wants her here instead of back in 2008.

While Alex and the Arbiters of The Afterlife drive back to London, Ray decides he's gonna watch the VHS tape. On the tape is his death. Ray died in the early 70's by suicide. They get pretty damn close to showing a hanging on screen before the tape cuts. Ray, shaken as all hell, walks back in and tells Chris and Shaz they need to watch their tapes. Chris goes first, he dies in a police shootout while his supervisor is blowing a police whistle and tells him to "do as he's told" even though Chris wants there to be backup. He walks back in the room and tries to take Shaz's tape before she can see it. Shaz says no give it to me, and watches herself get stabbed in the mid 90's trying to stop a vehicle break-in while Wonderwall plays. Suddenly Shaz understands why she's so dissatisfied with everything, she hasn't really had a life, she died so young. She takes it the worst of the three, but I think given the situation she's probably the most reasonable reaction of the three.

Gene, Keats, and Alex walk back into the police station. Before entering the room Keats starts kicking Gene's ass and begins shouting that they've all been denied the truth. Keats goes fucking ballistic and starts destroying desks and furniture and cackling like a maniac. He smashes a printer so hard the lights go out and we can see the universe.

Keats offers a deal. A "whole new department" waiting for them. Alex tries to talk them into staying, but Ray explains the story of his death, how he was a letdown for not joining the army, and how he took it out on someone in the form of police brutality, killed a guy who was just up to mischief, and how his superior, a man similar to Gene, covered it up. On the way out, Alex tells Keats to go to hell, and his response, predictably, is "All right."

So now you know, Jim Keats is the stand-in for the devil. Not a difficult leap to make, since the subtext has been pretty obvious the whole way through.

Alex, in the now-trashed main setting of the show with Gene, tries to cheer him up. She manages to get a little bit more info out of Gene. A story Gene told earlier, about Sam wanting to go to the pub. Gene says that you finish a job you go to the pub, implying that's how you get beyond police purgatory. But the two are cops at heart, and soon their attention turns to the jewel smugglers and Ray's plan to put Shaz in undercover as a flight attendant. Gene wonders why they're even talking about this, as he's lost his team, but Alex lets him know Chris took a radio. It's time for an impassioned plea to come back before the point of no return.

The squad walks with Keats down a hallway to some Out of Order Elevators right as Alex asks them to listen. Gene takes the radio, gives Ray a compliment, tells Shaz her long overdue promotion is effective immediately, and says Ray and Chris are his finest.

Keats, pissed off, shouts "GET IN" as the elevator opens, and we hear some screaming from below. It's literally an elevator to hell, the subtext is officially as text as it's gonna get. Shaz notices and goes "hey what the FUCK was that." Keats tries to do his own impassioned plea. Shaz 100% about going back, but Ray and Chris aren't so sure.

Shaz walks back into the main room of the station, says Ray and Chris didn't get convinced, but she's ready to rock and roll undercover. They do the stakeout, the gang doesn't recognize Shaz so they try to apprehend her but the cops show up. This surprises the gang and Shaz gets the drop on a guy. A shootout ensues. Gene's Audi Quattro, a car the show has tried to make an iconic setpiece, has been destroyed in the hail of gunfire. Some of them try and drive away but Chris and Ray crash into them and arrest them. It's time to go to the pub.

As it turns out, the Railway Arms, the pub in Life on Mars, can be summoned to London for the express purpose of sending people out of police purgatory. Nelson walks out, we haven't seen him at all since Season 2 of LOM. Nelson's a stand-in for the ferryman I guess. Shaz and Chris share a kiss before they head in, they seem to want to be together again. Ray and Gene have about a tender moment as those two macho knuckleheads can posibly have. Ray, Chris, and Shaz head inside, their stories complete.

Alex realizes this is where Sam and Annie went. She says she "can go home" but Gene's silence tells her what she already probably knew but didn't want to face, she didn't make it. Oh look it's that asshole Keats. He has Molly's scarf and tempts Alex with it, saying he can take her back, but he's lying. Alex sees Gene shake his head no and asks what time it is. It's 9:06. It's been 9:06 for weeks. It's the time on Keats' watch when they first meet, it's the time in her hospital room at the start of the season. There's been no interference from the outside world at all this season, this woman simply did not make it. I think it's probably likely that it was when Gene accidentally shot her and she was simultaneously maxed out on antibiotics. That was the last time we got any sort of supernatural outside world stuff.

Gene gives Keats his right hook, and Keats hisses like a demon and crawls away.

Alex gets right to the bargaining stage, tells Gene that he needs her to stay and help, but Gene's not having it, Alex is ready to move on. They get a little emotional and Alex heads inside the pub, the life on mars cinematic universe draws to a close.

Keats is still writhing around on the pavement, hissing and cackling. Gives Gene a good heckling before leaving. The next morning, there's a new guy in the station asking for where his office has gone and about where his iPhone went. Gene asks him into his office. The show is over.

Season 3 is a huge leap in quality. I wasn't sure if I should watch Ashes to Ashes after Life on Mars but I'm really glad I did, not many shows get the chance to end properly and if you know me you know I get really fucking pissed when shows get un-cancelled after they DO end properly, like Arrested Development. I'm not sure if the plan was always to do another show once Sam's story was over, but they didn't waste any time in between, so I suspect they did know they were gonna do a sequel series & had been developing it while wrapping up LOM.

That being said, I felt like there were some strange decisions in here. One being the move to London, I know officially it was because London would've been the center of UK fashion at the time, but you're really telling me that three cops from Manchester decided to all transfer to London together? Seems weird. I think Season 1 had far too little interference from the modern world, a complaint that I must not have been alone in because they rectified it in Season 2, only to take it away again for story reasons in Season 3. Also, if we're in Cop Afterlife, the decision to introduce The Devil in season 3 is awfully late, especially if Chris, Ray and Shaz have been dead for over a decade. Supermac as an antagonist could've been a *great* stand-in for the devil, a wildly corrupt higher-up had they actually put that together. I also found the disappearance of Evan, who is essentially Alex's adoptive father, really strange, he's in the police station *all the time* in Season 1, because he's a lawyer and you know what, lawyers sometimes have to assist people who have been accused of crimes. There's barely ever a lawyer present from Season 2 onwards. We know he's still in London, we see him in 2008 in the first episode. We do occasionally see Sam's mom in Season 2 of LOM after his dad runs off, it's not like the parents cease to exist once their circumstances come to pass. I dunno, I'm probably nitpicking but it seems like a glaring hole.

Anyway, you need a drama to watch? LOM & A2A are pretty good picks.

Now, before I wrap this up: let's real quick talk about LOM US. The united states has a bad habit of trying to make popular UK tv into popular American TV. It works rarely. NBC seemed to get it right exactly once with The Office. The first episode of the US Office is a shot-for-shot remake of the first episode of the UK Office. I'll be real with you I cannot stand Ricky Gervais anymore, the dude's a huge asshole, and I suspect Stephen Merchant did all the funny bits, but the UK Office is way better. There's an old pilot for Spaced US that's essentially a shot-for-shot remake of the first episode of spaced in San Fransisco, except it doesn't have Simon Pegg or Jessica Hynes in it, and it feels way wrong tonally. Just don't do it. But, LOM got a US remake due to it's smash hit popularity, and I refuse to watch it, but, I read about it's history a little. In the beginning it was written and executive produced by David E. Kelly, who is the guy behind Boston Legal, a fantastic lawyer-drama-comedy show. But, he left and handed over production responsibilities as time went on. Apparently it was alright at first, and was a victim of an unplanned hiatus and timeslot change, so they found out it wasn't going to be renewed before they were done making it and had a chance to wrap it up on their own terms. They do this in the stupidest way imaginable, apparently the whole thing was a dream on a spaceship. Life on Mars is not LITERAL!!!!! What are you DOING!!!!

AUGH!!!!!

Just stop it!

Anyway, this post might be longer than all my previous writing about the show combined, and Majima is calling to me, so this is where I leave you.

If you want to know what I'm watching and how I feel about it in a more real-time type of fashion, that's what bluesky is for, check the sidebar! But please for your own mental health, just block people instead of arguing with them. Words don't work on nazis, only bullets and baseball bats.