OK so I had a bit of fun with you this morning pretending that the snooker is the thing we’ve all been waiting for, when really it’s this. Now I don’t mind admitting that I was firmly in the “disappointed” camp with A2A series 1. On the disappointed spectrum my feelings didn’t approach the heights of last weekend’s Red Dwarf malarkey, or even the tragic waste of one of the year’s three specials that was the Easter Doctor Who. No it was more of a vague feeling of unease that it was not as good as it could have been and had somehow lost its way from the heights of the old Life on Mars. So given my reservations last time round, why am I looking forward to this so much?

Related: Ashes to Ashes section | Life on Mars section

Quite apart from what Paul managed to glean from the press pack, that dyed-in-the-wool Ashes and Mars lover and expert writer on all things televisual Ian Wylie has gone into print today with some more interesting background information.

I’m encouraged that the writers actually listened to the concerns expressed in various review and TV critic publications (maybe even us here on TV Scoop, who knows?) and took time to understand what worked in series one and what didn’t. I hope I never implied that I thought *none* of it worked, because there were parts of it which I thought were very good indeed, and if Pharaoh and Graham have managed to capitalise on those good bits, excise the bad bits, and take A2A to a new level, that’s one reason I’m so excited.

Their ideas for a three-series story arc are grounds for confidence too, because when writers can take their time and not gallop through their ideas in an effort to squash them all into a small space, things tend to work out better.

I like what I’m hearing about the mysterious additional time-traveller character too, as well as the fact that there will be some serious police stories – brutality, corruption, that kind of thing – in the mix.

And finally, reading that the eventual explanation of what’s going on in A2A will also bring in elements of Life on Mars and tie the whole thing together sounds brilliant, especially as the writers’ revelations to the cast were apparently too involved to take in all at once. A really deep, complex and convoluted final chapter to the whole thing should satisfy fans’ need for something meaty as well as bearing several rewatchings in years to come.

Manchester Evening News article
Life of Wylie – A2A extras