Invoking Phil Collins

Caught the Ashes to Ashes finale last night, wasn't Daniel Mays good as Old Scratch? I didn't keep up with the series, so discussing content would be a bit of a dead end. Instead, I just wanted to make a quick comment about the musical quotes littered throughout the show. They're a bit of a waste aren't they? Why feature a track like In the Air Tonight if you're only going to play a twenty second micro-snatch, then fade it null? Why risk conjuring up an audience comparison with the above sequence from Miami Vice if you're not going to do anything new or subversive with the piece?

Miami Vice moves entirely on image and a sonic thematic resonance. Phil Collins swallows this sequence, creating a protracted doom mood as the two leads drive towards an idea of extinction. Image and sound are combined to create a profound sense of desperation. Ashes to Ashes used the cue for a similar moment - the protagonist Alex risking her own life to discover the nature of her superior officer / love interest - but only spliced it in for a fleeting flourish then your standard fade down for dialoguing. It's anti-cinematic, and arguably anti-organic. It mugs audience attention away from a moment, creating a dramatic dead space where viewers internally remark about how much they enjoy the 'drum bit'. No mood is established, other than perhaps a kind of dreary nostalgia. At its worst, this kind of slight juxtaposition recalls the assembly of winsome holiday shows where a bored editor fades in something aurally peculiar as a kind of meta-wink to anyone paying attention. Yuck.