Trivia

Reactions to the return of Philip Glenister as Gene Hunt from Life on Mars (2006) were overwhelmingly positive. His characteristic bluntness drew much attention. In an interview with The National Student, Glenister himself chose, "Today, my friend, your diary entry will read: took a prozzie hostage and was shot by three armed bastards" as a personal favourite quote from this episode, and commentators also cited it.

The typeface used in the end credits are from a Commodore PET computer, which is also the same computer that is on DCI Hunt (Philip Glenister)'s desk.

After press complaints about the quality of Keeley Hawes' performance, Philip Glenister defended his co-star, stating, "It's a hellishly difficult thing to come into and I've seen how hard she works and how brilliant she is. To all those detractors, they're just plain wrong."

Series 3 of Ashes to Ashes is the most bizarre of the 5 series (including Life on Mars), and feels radically different in style to the previous 4 series. By now, some of the fan theories were evolving radically after each weekly episode, including Biblical parallels, battles between good and evil, and just who was the police officer with the facial injury. The show creators made a point of saying that some of the evolving fan theories were spot-on, but never confirmed which they were referring to. Ideally, all 8 episodes of series 3 should be binge re-watched to catch all the subtle hints, clues, nuances, and answers finally revealed in episode 8, as it turns out it was all there from the beginning.

In 2020, the shows creators revealed that they were developing a sequel series - in effect becoming a concluding final part of the trilogy - with Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes being parts one and two. In 2021, their latest working concept in development was a mix of ideas with something involving bringing back Sam Tyler to conclude his story arc, bringing Gene Hunt into possibly the 1990s, and also possibly something using a theme song by the now late David Bowie entitled "Lazarus" - which turned out to be one of David Bowie's final released songs.