BACKGROUND

DCI Gene Hunt is a fictional character in BBC One's science fiction/police procedural drama, Life on Mars and its sequel Ashes to Ashes. The character is portrayed by Philip Glenister in both Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes. In the American version of Life on Mars he is portrayed by Harvey Keitel.

The character of Gene Hunt is portrayed as politically incorrect, brutal and corrupt. Hunt is often displayed to maintain a love-hate relationship with both Sam Tyler (John Simm) and Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes), the leading protagonists of Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes respectively. However, subordinate members of his team often display loyalty and respect for him.

During the course of Life on Mars, Hunt gradually reveals his personal background to the other characters in the show. For example, Hunt explains that during his childhood years his father was an abusive drinker who used to beat him and that his brother, Stuart, was a drug addict who died after Hunt's repeated attempts to reform him.

Hunt was also conscripted into the British Army and carried out his national service, before going on to join the Manchester and Salford Police at the age of nineteen.

During Life on Mars, Hunt is in command of Manchester and Salford Police's A-Division CID.

Throughout the programme Hunt has respect and loyalty from the main characters, mainly being Chris Skelton (Marshall Lancaster) and Ray Carling(Dean Andrews) and the protagonist, Sam Tyler (John Simm). Hunt often uses unnecessary force while making arrests and during interviews, as well as practicing "noble-cause corruption" by his willingness to fabricate and falsify evidence in order to gain convictions and never for personal gain. Despite being referred to as an "old style cop" and a "maverick", Hunt has stated he is "clear and precise" on how far the police can go, thinking that there is a "very fine line between a criminal and a copper".^[4]

Early on in the series, Hunt is often disdainful and sexist towards the two main female characters in the programme, WPCs Phyllis Dobbs (Noreen Kershaw) and Annie Cartwright (Liz White). However, he eventually learns to value both officers and eventually accepts Cartwright into CID during the second series.

During Ashes to Ashes, Hunt is in command of the Metropolitan Police's Fenchurch East CID.

[edit] Series 1

During the first episode of series one, it is revealed that following Life on Mars, Hunt worked with Sam Tyler for a further seven years before Tyler crashed his car into a river and was presumed dead. Shortly after in February 1980, Hunt transferred from the Greater Manchester Police (which Manchester and Salford Police by then had become) to the Metropolitan Police in London, along with Chris Skelton and Ray Carling.^[5]

The first series, set in 1981, reveals Hunt to have divorced and also to have replaced his Ford Cortina, as seen in Life on Mars, with an imported Audi Quattro. During the first series, Hunt is displayed to be more professional, less aggressive and calmer than when last seen in Life on Mars. Hunt first meets Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes), the main protagonist, during a police drugs raid at a party. Initially, he mistakenly believes that she is a prostitute and is unaware that like Sam Tyler, she has travelled back in time from the future. During the series, the central storyline is that of how Alex Drake is trying to avoid her parents, Tim (Andrew Clover) and Caroline Price (Amelia Bullmore), death. While watching the death of her parents as an adult in the finale of the first series, she discovers that the person she remembers taking her hand as a child was Hunt and not Evan White (Stephen Campbell Moore) as she previously thought. This leads Drake to question if Hunt is real and not a figment of her imagination as she thought.

Series 2

The second series set in 1982, introduces a new fictional storyline of both Hunt and Drake working together in order to expose corruption within Fenchurch East CID. Alongside this storyline, Alex Drake is stalked by Martin Summers (Gwilym Lee & Adrian Dunbar) who claims to be from the future. After several discoveries and unofficial investigations led by Hunt and Drake, it is revealed that their superior officer, DSupt Charlie Mackintosh (Roger Allam) is heavily involved in the web of corruption. During episode four, after being found out, Mackintosh shoots himself and, with his dying words, warns Hunt and Drake of "Operation Rose", but dies before he can reveal more details. Summers, heavily involved in Operation Rose, plants a stolen tape from Drake on Hunt's desk on which she had questioned his existence and motives in order to their efforts to stop Operation Rose. This leads Hunt to furiously demand an explanation from Drake, who is forced to explain that she is from the future, which enrages Hunt leading him to think that she has taken him for a fool.

While investigating Operation Rose, Hunt and Drake notice that files and evidence have gone missing. Later, it is revealed that Chris Skelton had been paid large sums of money to undermine the investigation into Operation Rose, and had done so in order to pay for his wedding to Shaz Granger. Without letting those involved in Rose know that Skelton has been discovered, Hunt uses Skelton to gain information and it is revealed that Rose is the codename for an upcoming robbery of a van carrying gold bullion masterminded by corrupt officers. After a heated argument with Drake, Hunt suspends her and confiscates her warrant card, threatening to kill her if he finds her involved in the following days events.

During the finale, Hunt shoots Martin Summers dead in order to save Drake's life and accidentally shoots her afterwards. With no witnesses, Hunt is accused of attempted murder and goes into hiding. Upon Drake waking in the present day, she observes Hunt screaming at her to wake up in the present day, realising that she is in a coma in 1982.

[edit] Series 3

During the first episode, it is revealed that following his accidental shooting of Alex Drake, Hunt was accused of attempted murder and fled to the Costa Brava and Isle of Wight for three months. After waking Drake from her comatose state in 1983, Hunt is suspended on full pay by Jim Keats, from the Discipline and Complaints Department (D&C) sent to assess Fenchurch East CID in the wake of Drake's shooting and as part of Operation Countryman. Keats unofficially assures Hunt's team that he will file a good report about them, before privately telling Hunt that he "hates him", "knows what he did three years ago" and will "dismantle the station around him".

Also, the nature of Sam Tyler's death is raised by Alex Drake and Jim Keats. Drake conducts an unofficial investigation into the events and requests old witness statements and reports regarding his death, along with the jacket Tyler was seen wearing during Life on Mars. Hunt later burns these files along with the jacket. Along with this, Drake is continually haunted by a police officer with injuries to the right side of his face. During episode six, Drake finds a picture of this officer taken earlier without injuries in Hunt's desk.

During the penultimate episode, Drake asks Hunt if he killed Sam Tyler, with Hunt explaining that Tyler had been acting "weird" and asked for Hunt's help in faking his own death. However, the vision that Drake has of the police officer with injuries to the side of his face is connected to Tyler's presumed death, and a roll of undeveloped film apparently reveals where the policeman is supposedly buried. Along with this, Shaz, Ray and Chris all have visions of stars, as if looking up at the sky and hear strange voices as described by Chris as Nelson (Tony Marshall), that of the publican from Life on Mars, asking him what is he having to drink.

The character of Gene Hunt is politically incorrect, having been described as an old school copper. It is said that the character thinks of himself as a sheriff at high noon in a western genre film. Philip Glenister, the actor who plays Hunt has described his character as "intuitive" and "instinctive". Glenister has also drawn similarities between Hunt and football managers, José Mourinho and Brian Clough on account of his "arrogance" and way of thinking.

Throughout both Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, Hunt often makes comical remarks, which have led to him being labeled a folk hero and cult figure by a national newspaper. During Life on Mars, Hunt is described by the protagonist, Sam Tyler, as an ""overweight, over-the-hill, nicotine-stained, borderline alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding" (to which Hunt responded "You make that sound like a bad thing. The BBC explains that in Ashes to Ashes, Hunt's personality remains unchanged, apart from him "losing grip on the power he had as a police officer".

During Life on Mars, Hunt often wore a beige camel coat with a white shirt and striped tie, grey suit and trousers with white slip on shoes, typical of the period. In Ashes to Ashes, he is often seen wearing a black suit, Crombie coat and crocodile skin boots.