Great TV show

I'd heard about this over the years, but never saw it until the last week. Sam Tyler makes a great present-day cop (at least back in 2006) going back in time, apparently, to teach the utterly foul Gene Hunt and his motley crew of racists, sexists and homophobes, among other nasty things, how to police properly.

Good stories, good episodes, and the premise of him being in a coma throughout after being knocked down by the car was well done, but I actually wonder if he's in the afterlife with his 1973 colleagues? It was implied that he survived the jump off the police station building, but not much more after that.

So, should I see the sequel, Ashes to Ashes? I hear it's set in 1980s London with the same people, basically, except Sam, and they seem to be real people this time, and it's a more conventional police drama like many other 80s cop shows. Or is there more to it than that?