Walter Presents and BBC Four have unveiled foreign dramas airing this year.
Locked Up - Channel 4
Walter Presents is also bringing back successful Spanish prison drama Locked Up.
The first series proved popular last year, with Walter Iuzzolino of Walter Presents telling the RTS that the day after the show launched online, “something like 11 000 people had already burned through the entire [series]”
The show, he said, “is “really different. It’s really Hispanic. It’s very technicolour. It’s fun. It’s very sweaty. It is Spanish exuberance!”
Locked Up follows the beautiful and naïve Macarena Ferriero (Maggie Civantos) who is framed by her boss and lover for fraud and is sent to prison for seven years.
The new series sees Macarena continue to battle her way through the complexities of life in a high security women’s prison.
The series has won awards and received critical acclaim, having been described as “A small step for man, a large step for Spanish television” in one review.
The 19-part second series will launch on Channel 4 in April.
Black Lake - BBC Four
The BBC is also bringing foreign drama to our screens in the form of Swedish thriller Black Lake.
The eight-part drama follows a group of friends and the events that surround them after they visit a mysterious abandoned ski resort.
The resort has been closed for years, but Johan (Filip Berg) harbours dreams of reopening the isolated hotel and restoring it to its former glories.
However those dreams turn to nightmares as the real reason the resort was abandoned all those years ago is slowly revealed.
Black Lake airs on BBC Four later this year.
Spin - More4
Walter Presents’ popular French political thriller Spin is making a return to More4 – just in time for the French Presidential election.
The new series completes the trilogy, which the show’s star Gregory Fitoussi said followed the rise and fall of an administration: “reaching power and then losing it.”
With just six months to go before election day, spin doctor Simon Kapita (Bruno Wolkowitch) is working on behalf of the incumbent President, Alain Majorie (Nicolas Marié), while his ruthless rival and former friend Ludovic Desmeuze (Fitoussi) is backing a candidate from the extreme right.
The two heavyweights swing into a bloody battle for the Elysee, rife with political maneuvering, backstabbing, betrayal and intrigue.
The final series begins on More4 on 14th April 2017.