Annoying: Keeley Hawes as DCI Alex Drake in Ashes to Ashes (BBC)
There's something about Ashes to Ashes I find dispiriting, and I'm not talking about Keeley Hawes turning up for work at Met HQ dressed like a member of Human League. Although that too.
In last night's episode, DCI Alex Drake (Hawes) fairly cheerfully submitted to an induction into her new workplace that involved allowing her male colleagues to gather round and rubber stamp her backside.
It was all right to take part, she reasoned, because her life in 1981 is only a creation of her subconscious. By the same token, she could've stuffed the ink pad up DS Ray Carling's rear without fear of professional repercussions.
"I've done it too," chirped a female subordinate. Sexual harassment - remember when it was a bit of fun?
Things have moved on since Life on Mars, and I'm not talking about the show's fictional timeline. John Simm's character Sam Tyler was appalled when he encountered unreconstructed attitudes and methods of policing, 70s style.
His racist, sexist, brawling boss DCI Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) was made safe for modern enjoyment by Sam standing in as a liberal conscience. When the male coppers were patronising towards WPC Annie Cartwright ("go and detect me some Garibaldis love") Sam stuck up for her, and not just because she had potential love interest written all over her flammable fabrics.
The message was always that the nostalgia trip was entertaining so as long as you had a return ticket. Then somewhat confusingly, Life on Mars concluded with Sam committing suicide in the grey and grim present to return to a colourful imaginary past full of birds, boozing and larger-than-life characters.
And now the Gene Genie's the star of his own spin off, he and his team are fully fledged rogueish heroes, minus a credible critic. By giving them only the annoying, ineffectual and frequently inappropriately clad Drake as foil, it increasingly seems like a way to wallow in a Richard Littlejohn-style world view with impunity.
In the trailer for next week's episode, DC Chris Skelton appears amused and amazed that a prostitute is claiming she has been raped, with an earnest Drake explaining that no, really, it's still possible that a crime has been committed. It also looks like "Bolly knickers" is going to fall for Hunt's raw machismo.
Of course, you could argue that Ashes to Ashes is just getting going, and forthcoming plotlines like this will be used as an intelligent meditation on the differences between then and now, to point up how far we've come. (Or haven't.)
If so, I hope the storytelling is sharper than the wardrobe department's research.
