BBC Three is at a crucial point in its history. With a new controller, Fiona Campbell, a budget raised to £40m and a regular slot on BBC One on Mondays to Wednesdays, the corporation hopes that it can stem the tide of younger viewers washing up on the shores of Netflix and YouTube.
GQ magazine described the new Anna Paquin drama, Flack, as “so terrible it might just be unmissable”. The verdict of the Daily Telegraph’s TV critic was “sharp and whizzy”, while the Observer hailed it as a “terrific and bittersweet comedy”, “in turns woefully tender and snort-funny”. Whatever you think of the female-skewing Flack, one thing is clear: it’s not a show to ignore.
The British musician will play newspaper editor Kolawale, a new role created for the six-part series.
Adapted for screen by Toby Whithouse (Being Human), Noughts + Crosses is set in an alternate reality where society is segregated by race, with a white underclass called ‘Noughts’ and a black ruling class called ‘Crosses.’
Following the screening of episode one, executive producer Catherine Oldfield, co-creator and writer Daragh Carville, and actors Morven Christie and Daniel Ryan were on hand to discuss the show with ITV Granada Reports presenter Ann O’Connor.
Christie plays a detective sergeant and family liaison officer, who is embedded to offer support to the family of missing teenage twins, which allows her to investigate their disappearance from within.
Set in the halls of Westminster, the series follows Prime Minister Robert Sutherland (Robert Carlyle) and his Chief of Staff Anna Marshall (Victoria Hamilton) as they try to deal with a national emergency.
The pair must bear attacks from their political opponents, face family pressures and lead the COBRA committee, a team of experts and politicians, to ensure the nation’s safety.
The factual drama focuses on the families of the victims of serial killer and rapist Stephen Port (Stephen Merchant), and their fight to find the truth about what happened to Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Jack Taylor.
Now a widely criticised police investigation, the series will shed new light on the case and tell the story from the perspective of the victims’ families including Anthony Walgate’s mother Sarah Sak (Sheridan Smith) and Jack Taylor’s sister Donna Taylor (Jaime Winstone).
ITV’s new four-part thriller, Cheat, features Katherine Kelly as sociology lecturer Leah, and Molly Windsor as Rose, her scheming student.
Set in Cambridge, Leah (Katherine Kelly) is close to securing a permanent position as a professor when negligent student Rose (Molly Windsor), submits an unbelievably good dissertation. Leah accuses Rose of deception, only to be left vulnerable to a series of sinister attacks from the student and her father, a wealthy benefactor of the college.
The period drama is set during the Second World War and follows a British family in Singapore during the Japanese invasion in 1942.
Ruthless rubber merchant Walter Blackett (David Morrissey) fears for the future of his firm when his business partner Webb (Charles Dance) falls ill, and concocts a scheme to wed his spoilt daughter Joan (Georgia Blizzard) to Webb’s kind hearted son Matthew (Luke Treadaway).
The plan is far from straight-forward, as Matthew falls under the spell of Vera Chiang (Elizabeth Tan), a Chinese adventurer with a mysterious past.
In a short time Facebook Watch has come a long way. Rarely a week goes by without its parent, Facebook, attracting negative publicity for allegations that someone, somewhere is using the social media behemoth for nefarious purposes, with or without the possible involvement of the Russian state.
By contrast, the video-on-demand service Facebook Watch appears to be immune to such criticism. One of its first scripted shows, the 10-part Sorry for Your Loss, starring Elizabeth Olsen, won the kind of reviews that most commissioners would die for.
The series of the same name is set in the UK during the late 1850s and follows Patrick Sumner, a disgraced ex-army surgeon who tries to escape his past by signing up as a ship’s doctor for a whaling expedition in the Arctic.
On board the ship, Sumner encounters Henry Drax (Colin Farrell) the ship’s psychotic harpooner who’s developed an indifference towards killing.
Sumner’s attempts to flee the horrors of his past soon becomes a search for redemption, as he fights for survival in the Arctic.
