Airdates

Every Friday, I let you know the latest announcements about what’s been acquired and when new, imported TV shows will be arriving on UK screens

American Soul
Airdates

When’s that show you mentioned starting, TMINE? Including American Soul, Bite Club, Delhi Crime Story and Störst av allt (Quicksand)

1 February 2019 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Every Friday, TMINE lets you know when the latest TV shows from around the world will air in the UK

One very odd acquisition without a date this week, but everything else has a premiere announced.

Acquisitions

Netflix has picked up USA (US)’s Dare Me, an adaptation of Megan Abbott’s novel of the same name. I said odd because there isn’t actually a TV series yet – and there wouldn’t be if Netflix hadn’t agreed to distribute it everywhere in the world except the US.

So no premiere date yet… because it hasn’t been made yet.

Premiere dates

American Soul

American Soul (US: BET; UK: BET International)
Premiere date: Thursday, February 7, 10pm

Drama set behind the scenes of Soul Train, the 1970s US TV show that was the country’s first nationally-syndicated Black music show.

Stars Sinqua Walls, Kelly Price, Jason Dirden, Iantha Richardson, Katlyn Nichol, Jelani Winston and Christopher Jefferson. Kelly Rowland, Michelle Williams, Bobby Brown, K Michelle, Gabrielle Dennis and McKinley Freeman all guest star.

Bite Club

Bite Club (Australia: Nine; UK: Alibi)
Premiere date: Wednesday, February 20, 9pm

Bite Club follows two detectives who, after surviving a shark attack, join forces to hunt the ultimate predator – a serial killer who is also hunting them. Not only are they survivors but also ex-lovers.

Stars Todd Lasance, Ash Ricardo, Damian Walshe-Howling, Deborah Mailman, Robert Mammone, Pia Miller, Marny Kennedy, Darcie Irwin-Simpson and Dominic Monaghan.

Delhi Crime

Delhi Crime Story (Netflix)
Premiere date: Friday, March 22

True crime Indian anthology series. The first season follows the notorious December 2012 investigation by the Delhi Police into the horrific gang rape of a young woman, which reverberated across India and the world. It captures the complexities of the scrutiny, the emotional toll on the investigating team, and their determination to bring the perpetrators to justice in a fraught environment.

Stars Shefali Shah, Adil Hussain, Denzil Smith, Rasika Dugal, Rajesh Tailang and Yashaswini Dayama.

Quicksand

Störst av allt (Quicksand) (Netflix)
Premiere date: Friday, April 5

Swedish Netflix original from the makers of Bron/Broen (The Bridge), based on the book by  Malin Persson Giolito.

A mass shooting takes place at a prep school in Stockholm’s wealthiest neighbourhood Djursholm, a normal high school student, Maja Norberg, finds herself on trial for murder. When the events of that tragic day are revealed, so too are the private details about her relationship with Sebastian Fagerman and his dysfunctional family.

Stars Hanna Ardéhn and Felix Sandman.

Der Pass (Pagan Peak)
Airdates

When’s that show you mentioned starting, TMINE? Including Das Boot, The Umbrella Academy and Mayans MC

25 January 2019 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

Every Friday, TMINE lets you know when the latest TV shows from around the world will air in the UK

Acquisitions

Not many acquisitions at all this week, although acquired this very day by Sky is Der Pass (Pagan Peak), which despite the name is actually the latest remake of Bron/Broen (The Bridge), this time by Germany and Austria. Bridge, Pass, Tunnel – I guess they’re all the same in the end, though.

Otherwise, everything has premiere dates.

Das Boot

Premiere dates

First up, just a mention that we have a new premiere date for Das Boot (The Boat) – Wednesday, February 6, 9pm, on Sky Atlantic. The rest are new dates, though:

Mayans MC

Mayans MC (US: FX; UK: BBC Two)
Premiere date: Saturday, February 2, 10.40pm

Spin-off from Sons of Anarchy about YA motorbike gang, this one not so white.

Umbrella Academy

The Umbrella Academy (Netflix)
Premiere date: Friday, February 15

The Umbrella Academy tells the story of 43 infants who, on the same day in 1989, are inexplicably born to random, unconnected women who showed no signs of pregnancy the day before. Seven are adopted by a billionaire who creates The Umbrella Academy and prepares his ‘children’ to save the world.

Now, the six surviving members reunite upon the news of their father’s passing and must work together to solve a mystery surrounding his death. But the estranged family begins to come apart due to their divergent personalities and abilities, not to mention the imminent threat of a global apocalypse.

Based on the Dark Horse Comics title, it stars Ellen Page, Mary J Blige, Cameron Britton, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, Colm Feore, Adam Godley, John Magaro, Ashley Madekwe and Kate Walsh.

Rush
Airdates

When’s that show you mentioned starting, TMINE? Including Star Trek: Short Treks, Safe Harbour, Camping, Nightflyers, Rush, Dirty John and After Life

18 January 2019 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Every Friday, TMINE lets you know when the latest TV shows from around the world will air in the UK

Plenty of acquisitions this week, and all but one comes with premiere dates.

Acquisitions

  • Sundance Now has picked up Sjónvarp Símans (Iceland)’s Stella Blómkvist, which is based on a series of books about a hard-nosed lawyer who takes on mysterious murder cases. It’ll be available in the US from January 31, but it looks like we’ll have to hold out until April before we get it here.

Premiere dates

Short Treks

Star Trek: Short Treks (US: CBS All Access; UK: Netflix)
Premiere date: Available now

Cunning hidden away in the “trailers and extras” section of the Netflix menu system for season two of Star Trek: Discovery are these short movies focused on individual characters from the series, both heroes and villains. Haven’t watched them, since I’ve been saving them for Lovely Wife until now.

Safe Harbour

Safe Harbour (Australia: SBS; UK: BBC Four)
Premiere date: Saturday, January 26, 9pm or maybe February 2 

Four part 2018 drama set in Brisbane that revolves around a group of five friends whose sailing holiday of a lifetime to Indonesia takes an unexpected turn when they come across a boat overloaded with desperate asylum seekers.

HBO's Camping

Camping (US: HBO; UK: Sky Atlantic)
Premiere date: Thursday, January 31, 10pm

Dull US remake of the Sky Atlantic Julia Davis comedy about a group of city friends going off camping together to celebrate a birthday. David Tennant, trialling his inadvisable American accent again, is the lucky man in question, Jennifer Garner his controlling wife, Juliette Lewis their flaky friend along for the trip.

Didn’t last more than an episode of it.

Episode reviews: 1

Nightflyers

Nightflyers (US: Syfy; UK: Netflix)
Premiere date:  Friday, February 1

Nightflyers is set in the year 2093 and follows a team of scientists aboard The Nightflyer, the most advanced ship ever built, as they embark on a journey to find other life forms. Their mission takes them to the edge of the solar system, and to the edge of insanity, as they realise true horror isn’t waiting for them in outer space – it’s already on their ship.

This sci-fi horror piece based on a George RR Martin novella is a frustrating affair, that’s intermittently good and bad, with a tediously inconclusive final episode. It has some good ideas and a great cast (including Blake’s 7‘s Josette Simon), but ultimately, it proves a great big waste of time.

Episode reviews: 1, 2-5, 6-10

Rush

Rush (Australia: Ten; UK: Alibi)
Premiere date: Monday, February 4, 5pm

Rush follows the lives of members of the prestigious Tactical Response team (TR), which is based on the real life Victoria Police Critical Incident Response Team, a highly mobile unit that fills the operational gap between general duties police and the SWAT-like Special Operations Group. The team is seen responding to violent incidents such as carjackings, suicides and armed offences.

It’s a bit of an old one this (2008), so you can treat yourself watching all manner of “before they were famous actors”, such as Rodger Corser (Glitch, Doctor, Doctor) and  Claire van der Boom (Hawaii Five-0).

Dirty John

Dirty John (US: Bravo; UK: Netflix)
Premiere date: Thursday, February 14

Dirty John tells the true story of how a romance between Debra Newell and the charismatic John Meehan spiralled into secrets, denial, manipulation, and ultimately, a fight for survival for an entire family. Their fast-tracked romance creates tension between Debra and her two daughters Terra and Veronica, leaving the girls no choice but to investigate the man who has swept their mother off her feet, while the backstory of Debra and her mother Arlane (Jean Smart) provides insight into why Debra was so vulnerable.

The eight episode drama series is based on the articles and breakout true crime podcast from Los Angeles Times reporter Christopher Goffard. It stars Connie Britton, Eric Bana, Julia Garner, Juno Temple and Jean Smart.

After Life

After Life (Netflix)
Premiere date: Friday, March 8

Netflix Original written by, starring and directed by Ricky Gervais. It tells the story of Tony (Gervais), who had a perfect life. But after his wife Lisa dies, Tony changes. After contemplating taking his own life, he decides instead to live long enough to punish the world by saying and doing whatever he likes from now on. He thinks it’s like a superpower – not caring about himself or anyone else – but it turns out to be tricky when everyone is trying to save the nice guy they used to know.

It also stars Kerry Godliman, Tom Basden, Tony Way, David Bradley, Ashley Jensen, Penelope Wilton, David Earl, Joe Wilkinson, Mandeep Dhillon, Jo Hartley, Roisin Conaty, Tim Plester and Diane Morgan.

No trailer yet. Soz.

Airdates

When’s that show you mentioned starting, TMINE? Including New Amsterdam

11 January 2019 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Every Friday, TMINE lets you know when the latest TV shows from around the world will air in the UK

Four acquisitions this week, but only one with a premiere date. Let me elucidate:

Acquisitions

  • Universal has picked up Global (Canada)’s six-part event mini-series about a vanished aeroplane, Departure, which stars Archie Panjabi, Christopher Plummer and a host of others. However, there’s no premiere date as of yet, probably because it only started production in November and hasn’t aired in Canada.
  • Alibi has acquired Nine (Australia)’s “so dumb it hurts” serial killer drama Bite Club, featuring Lost’s Dominic Monaghan. That’s likely to air in February, but there’s no exact date yet.
  • Walter’s bought DR (Denmark)’s adaptation of Jakob Ejersbo’s book of the same name, Liberty, featuring Connie Nielsen, Carsten Bjørnlund and Sofie Gråbøl. No premiere date either, as ‘this year’ is the best information Walter is offering at the moment.

Premiere dates

NEW AMSTERDAM — “Pilot” Episode 101 — Pictured: Ryan Eggold as Dr. Max Goodwin — (Photo by: Francisco Roman/NBC)
New Amsterdam (US: NBC; UK: Amazon)
Premiere date: Friday, February 8

The Black List: Redemption‘s Ryan Eggold playing a newly arrived medical director at New York’s largest, oldest and most famous public hospital, New Amsterdam. He reckons there’s a lot wrong with it, so plans to turn it upside down, ignore all the rules and fire everybody who’s part of ‘the system’, so that doctors can get back to being doctors rather than accountants/golf players. Why, he’s so optimistic and revolutionary, he might even inspire that Freema Agyeman (Doctor Who, Sense8, The Carrie Diaries) to stop touring all the TV talk shows to raise funding and come back to working as a doctor again.

Based on a real-life doctor at the real New York hospital of Bellevue, there is at least a germ of something different in New Amsterdam and it was moderately interesting to see Eggold doing some robust change management, listening to those on the front-line to see what could be changed and then putting it into practice. The show doesn’t make him an all-knowing genius, but one who makes mistakes and is prepared to listen to find out how to fix them. It’s also not entirely populated with pretty people, with nice old doctor Anupam Kher turning out to have almost House-ian diagnostic skills, if a much better bedside manner, thanks to the mystic skill of “taking your time”.

However, the rest of the time, it’s plain old medical procedural melodrama and soap, with Eggold turning out to have cancer, his wife nearly miscarrying their baby, doctors trying to have relationships and dumping their girlfriends for not being black enough and so on. That’s before we get onto the likelihood of random people being injected with Ebola by terrorists in order to destroy New York.

This is clearly not a production team confident in its ability to woo viewers with rigorous MBA framework analyses.

By the end of the first episode, I’d been pleasantly surprised by the show but not interested in it enough to want to watch much more of it. But at the very least, it wasn’t a waste of my time.

Episode reviews: 1

Turn Up Charlie
Airdates

When’s that show you mentioned starting, TMINE? Including Magnum P.I. and Turn Up Charlie

4 January 2019 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Every Friday, TMINE lets you know when the latest TV shows from around the world will air in the UK

Christmas is naturally a bit quiet for acquisitions but we’re only a few days into the new year and yet we’ve already got two new premiere dates.

Premiere dates

Magnum PI
Stephen Hill as Theodore “TC” Calvin, Zachary Knighton as Orville “Rick” Wright, and Jay Hernandez as Thomas Magnum Photo: Karen Neal/CBS ©2018 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Magnum P.I. (US: CBS; UK: Sky1)
Premiere date: Wednesday, January 16, 9pm

Surprisingly decent reboot of the classic 80s private detective series remains faithful to the original while making it more diverse. In a world of cop and medical procedurals, a private investigator procedural also feels surprisingly fresh. The first episode is a bit too Fast and Furious for its own good, but fortunately, it settles down soon afterwards to become a solid piece of light fun.

Episode reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Turn Up Charlie
Turn Up Charlie
Turn Up Charlie (Netflix)
Premiere date: Friday, March 15

Netflix original created by and starring Idris Elba. Charlie (Elba), a struggling DJ and eternal bachelor is given a final chance at success when he reluctantly becomes a manny to his famous best friend’s problem-child daughter. Also stars Piper Perabo, and features JJ Feild, Angela Griffin, Guz Khan, Jocelyn Jee Esein, Jade Anouka, Cameron King and Dustin Demri-Burns.

No trailer yet, unfortunately.