A modern police officer finds herself mysteriously transported back to the politically incorrect world of the Metropolitan Police in 1981.
In 2008, Detective Inspector Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes), a police psychologist, is shot during a hostage crisis and wakes up in 1981. She finds herself working with the very characters she has spent years studying: DCI Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister), DC Ray Carling (Dean Andrews), and DC Chris Skelton (Marshall Lancaster). Convinced she is in a coma, Alex attempts to understand her new reality while clashing with Hunt’s chauvinistic and often violent methods. Haunted by visions of a pierrot clown from a David Bowie music video, she believes she can return to her daughter if she can prevent the death of her own parents, who were killed in a car bomb in 1981. The final series introduces DCI Jim Keats (Daniel Mays), an officer from the Discipline and Complaints department, whose investigation into Hunt’s unit threatens to tear the team apart and expose the truth of their existence.
As the sequel to the critically lauded Life on Mars, this serial had the difficult task of recapturing the original’s success while establishing its own identity. The relocation from 1970s Manchester to 1980s London allowed for a significant tonal shift: the grit of the north was replaced with the brash, aspirational mood of the Thatcher era, reflected in a soundtrack heavy with New Romantic pop. Replacing the male protagonist with a woman gave the central conflict a fresh dynamic; Alex Drake’s psychological approach to policing was a direct foil to Gene Hunt’s gut instinct. The production successfully expanded the mythology of its predecessor, deepening the central mystery before delivering a final, definitive explanation that re-framed the narrative of both series.
Broadcast: BBC One, 23 Episodes, 7 February 2008 – 21 May 2010
Created by: Matthew Graham, Ashley Pharoah
Executive Producers: Jane Featherstone, Simon Crawford Collins, Matthew Graham, Ashley Pharoah
Producers: Beth Willis, Howard Burch
Writers: Matthew Graham, Ashley Pharoah, Mark Greig, Julie Rutterford, Mick Ford, Nicole Taylor, Jack Lothian, Tom Butterworth, Chris Hurford
Directors: Jonny Campbell, Bille Eltringham, Catherine Morshead, Ben Bolt, Philip John, David Drury, Alrick Riley, Jamie Payne
Main Cast: Keeley Hawes (DI Alex Drake), Philip Glenister (DCI Gene Hunt), Dean Andrews (DC Ray Carling), Marshall Lancaster (DC Chris Skelton), Montserrat Lombard (WPC Shaz Granger), Daniel Mays (DCI Jim Keats)
