Sky 1 has won the rights to air the new Muppets' television show, The Muppets.
The programme will be the Muppets' first television network series since Muppets Tonight, which was broadcast between 1996 and 1998.
On 18 September 2016, Steve November has a problem. At 9:00pm that night, the slot arrives in ITV’s schedule that would normally be filled by the season premiere of Downton Abbey.
As Director of Drama for the ITV network, November has to find a replacement – Downton is ending, with the last ever episode to air this coming Christmas Day. And, given Downton’s blockbuster ratings performance, it’s going to be a fiendishly difficult act to follow.
Jed Mercurio doesn't make it easy for himself. His current show, Sky 1's Critical, is a 13-part drama set in a state-of-the-art trauma centre. Every week, it focuses on a different and gruesome medical emergency while also telling the intertwined personal stories of its large cast. Oh, and it's told in real time, too.
"I always think that everything is achievable," he says, when I ask if he deliberately set the challenge of making this series as hard as possible for himself.
