When John Simms opted to leave 'Life on Mars' after two series the BBC were left in a pickle. They had a show with ratings on the rise and in Gene Hunt a character who the public seemed to be falling in love with.
The answer was simple - lets do the exact same thing, only in the eighties but with a woman cop going back in time instead. Lets go really mad and have Hunt and his crew move down to London too, for no apparent reason.
All this leads to a similar, if indeed clever, spin-off that follows the ground already well trodden by the show it was spun-off from. If anything Hunt is more cartoonish than ever, and the show is bigger and bolder because of this.
Throw in some good music, and a decent performance from Keeley Hawes, and you've got a show that ran for three series. For me though it lacked the originality of 'Life on Mars' - probably because the premise wasn't original second time around.
The answer was simple - lets do the exact same thing, only in the eighties but with a woman cop going back in time instead. Lets go really mad and have Hunt and his crew move down to London too, for no apparent reason.
All this leads to a similar, if indeed clever, spin-off that follows the ground already well trodden by the show it was spun-off from. If anything Hunt is more cartoonish than ever, and the show is bigger and bolder because of this.
Throw in some good music, and a decent performance from Keeley Hawes, and you've got a show that ran for three series. For me though it lacked the originality of 'Life on Mars' - probably because the premise wasn't original second time around.