An archive of blog entries about UK TV programmes and production.
Kudos, which makes Spooks (aka MI-5 to US viewers), has decided to produce a spy show for kids. Starring Red Dwarf‘s Danny John Jules, it’ll be set in an inner city high school and filmed in high def. Planned guest stars included Robert Llewellyn, Rula Lenska, Alex Ferns and Steve Furst. It’ll start in early 2007 on CBBC and run to ten episodes.
Not sure if US readers have noticed or not, but Amazon’s Unbox video downloads service is now offering you the chance to rent episodes of sci-fi series. Compared to iTunes, it’s pretty rubbish, given you can only watch the episodes for seven days before they self-destruct, but I’d thought I’d point it out anyway. Shows available include Star Trek, Stargate SG-1, Firefly, Babylon 5 and Doctor Who. Technical requirements are similar to the equally rubbish Five VoD service.
There are some interesting choices for Doctor Who, with old school stories such as The Aztecs, The Seeds of Death and The Mind Robber mixing it up with later stories (none of the new Who stories available). It’s worth noting that $1.99 will only get you an episode of Doctor Who, not a complete story, so you’ll have to pay $8 or so to rent all of The Curse of Fenric, for instance. You’d be mad to, but the option’s there.
Not sure how much my mate Martin had to do with it (probably not a lot, but I like to think he did) but Glynis Barber, who played Soolin on Blake’s 7 and Makepeace on Dempsey and Makepeace, is to join the cast of Emmerdale. God bless you, Martin.
As mentioned yesterday, Showtime is remaking the Beeb’s Manchild, in which 50-something men acted like 20-somethings; the slight change is that it’s going to be about 40-somethings. John Corbett, of Northern Exposure and Sex and the City, was the only name attached to it at the time, but now we have a few new cast members.
Kevin Smith, director of Clerks and Silent Bob himself, is to play Paul, an angry divorced guy. And because all US shows now need at least one British cast member, James Purefoy is to take on the Nigel Havers role of the original show. It should be interesting, at the very least.
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