BBC Upcoming Drama

[Bob The Skutter]

BBC Press Office have just put out their Winter/Spring season drama highlights press release, and it looks like there's some interesting shows coming up.
The things I'll be watching or at least giving a chance...

Luther
A new kind of crime thriller for British TV starring Idris Elba (The Wire). In each exciting and fast-moving story, the murderer's identity is known from the start, focussing the drama on the psychic duel between hunter and quarry, who sometimes have more in common than either would like to think.

Five Days
In the second series of this award-winning drama, a tiny newborn baby is abandoned in the toilets of a Yorkshire hospital. At the same time, the Trans-Pennine commuter train is halted by a suicidal jumper. Are they connected? From this moment on, the lives of those onboard the train and in the hospital will be changed irrevocably, not least for DC Laurie Franklin (Suranne Jones), off-duty that day but travelling on the train with her mum (Anne Reid), who is recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

Doctor Who
A new series, a new Doctor and more intergalactic adventures for the nation's favourite sci-fi hero.

Ashes To Ashes
Gene Hunt is back in all his Eighties splendour for the final series of this hugely-popular series which promises more twists and turns than ever before.

The Silence
A deaf girl witnesses a murder in this new four-part drama. Eighteen-year-old Amelia Edwards (Genevieve Barr) has recently been fitted with a cochlear implant, enabling her to hear, but she struggles to accept that she has a place in the hearing world.

Breaking free from her over-protective parents (Gina McKeeHugh Bonneville – Lost In Austen), she goes to stay with her party-loving cousins, homicide detective uncle Jim (Douglas Henshall – Collision, Primeval) and warm-hearted aunt Maggie (Dervla Kirwan – Ondine, Moving On). Amelia witnesses the audacious murder of a policewoman, and is reluctantly propelled further into a loud and frightening world.

Jim is assigned the case and, when she identifies a police officer on the drugs squad as one of the killers, he urgently needs to protect his niece. If his colleagues find out what she has witnessed, she will be in extreme danger from the very people he works with. But, by keeping her a secret, he will jeopardise his own position in the force and put his whole family at risk.

The Deep
James Nesbitt, Minnie Driver and Goran Visnjic star in a five-part thriller set thousands of feet below the Arctic ice. Simon Donald's story follows the crew of an oceanographic submarine as they search the final frontiers of Earth for unknown and remarkable life forms before inexplicable circumstances then cause catastrophe to strike.

Survivors
Series two follows the adventures of a small group of people thrown together in the aftermath of a devastating virus that has wiped out most of the world's population.

Being Human
Series Two of this award-winning drama about the lives of three flatmates who just happen to be a ghost, a werewolf and a vampire. The first episode of series two aired on 10 January with an overnight audience of 1.4 million – a 50% increase on the first series opener.

Lennon Naked
Played by Christopher Eccleston, Lennon Naked charts his transition from Beatle John to enduring and enigmatic icon.

I know this posts already getting pretty long, but there's also been a Guardian article about how the BBC are cancelling some long running and "comfortable" dramas, in order to take more risks and allow new blood in to the schedule. Including this titbit

A third series of hit BBC3 drama Being Human has been commissioned for the autumn, after the second series debuted this week with an audience of 1.4 million, double that of the first run.

Link to the article is here if anyone wants to read.

There's a preview in the link at the top, but I suspect that'll be UK only, but it's here too.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Wow. None of those sound interesting. Well I'm not so depressed at how bad American TV sounds this fall, then. At least we have that CW show about teenagers in space to look forward to.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Wow. None of those sound interesting. Well I'm not so depressed at how bad American TV sounds this fall, then. At least we have that CW show about teenagers in space to look forward to.

Doctor Who, Ashes to Ashes, Being Human and Survivors are already proven to be good shows, at least in my opinion, I'm willing to give the rest a go (and probably a few more besides) because sometimes things work out better than they sound on paper.

This is all what's coming up in the next few months not the slate for Autumn. I know there must have been some things announced but I can't remember anything beyond the updated Sherlock Holmes thing written by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. (But I think that's due this summer.)

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I, of course, can't wait Doctor Who, but I'm also looking to the final season of Ashes to Ashes. I still don't like Alex, but I love Gene Hunt far too much to stay away.

And is too much to hope for to have John Simm make a surprise guest appearance? *crosses fingers*

Lastly, I hadn't heard Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss are doing a Sherlock Holmes project. I'm definitely looking forward to that!

 

[Bob The Skutter]

^ yeah, I'm not sure what's going on with it I read it was a 1 off 90 minute show, then I read it was 3x90 minute, but I've read it was a 1x60 minute show too. Either way it starts filming this month.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Is there anything known about the cast?

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock, Martin Freeman as Watson and Rupert Graves as Lastrade

 

[Angel4576]

No Torchwood anytime soon then.....

 

[Bob The Skutter]

No Torchwood anytime soon then.....

No, rumour has it series 4 will be announced this month, but nothing official yet.

 

[Angel4576]

Ah, well fingers crossed.

Nothing around Outcasts either, I guess that really is dead. Shame.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Ah, well fingers crossed.

Nothing around Outcasts either, I guess that really is dead. Shame.

I emailed them and asked about it, they said they had no news whatsoever about it. So either it's still in development and they've not made a decision or it's quietly died.

Oh shit, news!

From Broadcast

Life On Mars producer Kudos Film and Television has landed a BBC1 commission for a post-apocalyptic drama set on another planet.

Penned by Spooks writer Ben Richards, the 8 x 60-minute Outcasts (working title) is set in 2040, after life on earth has ended. It follows a group of “pioneers” who establish a new society on an unnamed planet.
The drama starts about a year after their arrival and focuses on their emerging social structure and the philosophical questions, rather than the hunt for resources.
Controller of drama commissioning Ben Stephenson, who ordered the series with BBC1 controller Jay Hunt, said: “The earth has ended and they have no choice but to go somewhere else. They’ve found a habitable place, but how do you begin again?

Official Press Release

Following on from the innovative and era-defining hits Spooks, Hustle and Life On Mars, Kudos Film & TV is moving into another new world. BBC One has commissioned a new eight-part drama series, Outcasts.

Created by Ben Richards (Spooks, The Fixer, Party Animals), Outcasts is set on a recently-discovered planet and tells of the dilemmas, loves and lives of a group of people setting up a new world.

This life-sustaining planet is now home to the surviving population from Earth. Here there is a chance to start again, to bring the lessons learnt from Earth and to put them into action on a new planet.

Set in 2040, Outcasts begins on the day the last known transporter from Earth arrives, prompting great excitement on the new planet: Who is on board? Friends and loved ones? Important supplies and news from Earth? But also many questions: Will the new people bring the problems of Earth with them? Will the mistakes that destroyed Earth be repeated? Will the arrival of a new, would-be leader, rock the fragile and precarious equilibrium of our fresh, unified and courageous new world?
And, most importantly of all, how do you create a new and a better world?

This commission marks the latest high-profile scripted drama Kudos has produced for the BBC over the past decade, including such popular, award-winning shows as Spooks, Hustle, Life On Mars and Ashes To Ashes.

 

[Starkers]

Dr Who? Oh great another BBC medical drama

Outcasts sounds suspiciously like Earth 2...which I'm fine with as I loved Earth 2...

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Dr Who? Oh great another BBC medical drama

Outcasts sounds suspiciously like Earth 2...which I'm fine with as I loved Earth 2...

They seemed to find it important to point out it's not like other shows because the main characters are getting there to a society that's already been set up, and they're outcasts because they're bringing old Earth attitudes with them.

 

[Kirkman1987]

I am one American who will be very saddened when Ashes to Ashes turns in it's badge at the end of this series. LOM and this are one of my favorite series.

One of these days I really need to catch up on Doctor Who. I've seen episodes here and there, and like it quite a bit.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I am one American who will be very saddened when Ashes to Ashes turns in it's badge at the end of this series. LOM and this are one of my favorite series.

One of these days I really need to catch up on Doctor Who. I've seen episodes here and there, and like it quite a bit.

From what I've read they're saying by the end of Ashes to Ashes they want people to feel as it's Life on Mars series 5, because they hope it'll feel like it's tied up any loose ends people feel were left in LoM, and it will have explained the mystery of Gene Hunt. They're not looking to do another spin off or create another Gene Hunt series.

 

[Starkers]

I'm still hoping that Gene Hunt will get blind drunk, fall down a flight of stairs and wake up in 2010...

 

[Kirkman1987]

I am one American who will be very saddened when Ashes to Ashes turns in it's badge at the end of this series. LOM and this are one of my favorite series.

One of these days I really need to catch up on Doctor Who. I've seen episodes here and there, and like it quite a bit.

From what I've read they're saying by the end of Ashes to Ashes they want people to feel as it's Life on Mars series 5, because they hope it'll feel like it's tied up any loose ends people feel were left in LoM, and it will have explained the mystery of Gene Hunt. They're not looking to do another spin off or create another Gene Hunt series.

I think they will do a great job tying it all up. It's been a fun ride to this point, and I see no reason to doubt the show now.
As to not seeing Hunt again, it saddens me just a little, but it's got to end sometime, and it looks like they're going out on top.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I'm still hoping that Gene Hunt will get blind drunk, fall down a flight of stairs and wake up in 2010...

Oh, my, that would be too awesome for words.

 

[Starkers]

apart from the fact that he'd be arrested within five minutes for racisim/sexism and every other form of ism known to man!

 

[The Nth Doctor]

They would have to catch him first!