Essay link by Dave Rolinson
After the brilliant ending of Ashes to Ashes/Life on Mars (2006-2010) really worked through the idea of police series as “deluded daydream”, and featured a clip of P.C. George Dixon, here’s a link to an article I wrote in 2004 on The Black and Blue Lamp (1988).
The Black and Blue Lamp: Illustrated Gazette article by Dave Rolinson
This was another drama which featured characters mysteriously transported from one time of policing to another, in this case from the Ealing world of The Blue Lamp (and, therefore, its TV spin-off Dixon of Dock Green (1955-1974)) and into the corrupt, violent world of the Gene Hunt-style cop series, here fictionalised as a show-within-a-show, The Filth. The Black and Blue Lamp was much more controversial – with the police in particular – because of the scathing conclusions it drew about the police, and although Life on Mars was less political, it did use time devices to question the “indulgent tradition” of police dramas. This site will have more on The Black and Blue Lamp, Dixon of Dock Green and Life on Mars in the future. Meanwhile, the best blogs on Ashes to Ashes, which have picked up the Dante and other key themes throughout, were on Cathode Ray Tube, with the final piece here
