FIRST LOOK: Anna Friel, Bobby Schofield, Anna Maxwell Martin, David Threlfall and Austin Haynes star in Unforgivable, a new drama from Jimmy McGovern (Time) airing later this year on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer.
All posts by Michael Pickard
Beth foot forward
Writer and director Uzo Oleh takes DQ into the making of Beth, Channel 4’s first digital original drama commissioned for YouTube and its own linear and streaming channels, and outlines how he hopes the show can change audience perceptions of the meaning of ‘digital content.’
Masterpiece sets October launch for Maigret
TRAILER: Benjamin Wainwright takes the title role in Maigret, a new adaptation of Georges Simenon’s Parisian inspector coming to Masterpiece in the US this October.
Burning brighter
For the second season of Bay of Fires, Marta Dusseldorp revisits a series where she’s more than just the star. She tells DQ about expanding the show’s story, juggling multiple roles behind the scenes and catering for some unexpected visitors. It’s a piece of advice Marta Dusseldorp isn’t likely to forget in a hurry. The Australian star was on the Tasmanian set of Bay of Fires, filming a season two scene that finds her character Stella and Toby Leonard Moore’s Jeremiah moving a body bag – weighing heavy with a corpse inside – onto a truck before picking up another. Then during one take, they noticed a mysterious figure standing nearby, smoking a cigarette. “We keep acting, because we’re professionals, and this guy we’ve never seen before just looks at us and goes, ‘That’s a shit way to move a body,’ and walks out,” she tells DQ. Sadly, that particular take didn’t make the final cut. “But it was just one of those moments where I went, ‘This place is solid gold. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.’” Co-created, written, produced by and starring Dusseldorp, Bay of Fires was Australian streamer ABC iview’s most watched local drama of 2023, enthralling viewers with the trials and tribulations of Stella and her two children when their lives are suddenly upended and they are forced to relocate to the town of Mystery Bay. There, the locals – who dub the town ‘Misery Bay’ – are decidedly unwelcoming, and Stella soon discovers that they, … Continue reading Burning brighter
Katherine Kelly is In Flight for Channel 4
FIRST LOOK: Katherine Kelly plays a flight attendant caught up in a drug smuggling operation in six-part drama In Flight, coming to Channel 4 in the UK later this year.
Alicia Silverstone, Acorn TV discover Irish Blood
TRAILER: Acorn TV has revealed the trailer for Irish Blood, its upcoming six-part crime drama starring Alicia Silverstone. It debuts in the US and Canada on Monday, August 11.
All that Jaz
With the second season of Gen V on the horizon and a music album in the works, Jaz Sinclair, who plays Marie Moreau in the spin-off from superhero drama The Boys, talks about how she’s dealing with stardom, the appeal of magical stories and why she’d be a terrible influencer.
U&alibi books Bookish launch date
TRAILER: Bookish, a post-war period drama starring Mark Gatiss as a bookstore owner with a skill for solving murders, will debut on UKTV’s U&alibi on July 16.
Summit to think about
Cinematographer Marcel Zyskind and production designer Stephen Carter recall how they partnered with creator Jesse Armstrong to make HBO film Mountainhead, and their search for the perfect billionaire hideaway.
Adapting to Survivors
Australian series The Survivors blends a murder mystery with character drama to explore the fallout from a past tragedy within a small coastal town. Exec producers Tony Ayres and Andrea Denholm open the book on this Netflix adaptation of Jane Harper’s novel. After just three days on Netflix, Australian drama The Survivors drew 5.3 million views and crashed into the Top 10 lists of 76 countries around the world. Just don’t count executive producer Tony Ayres among the viewers. “I’m excited and happy that people are watching it – and it puts my viewing habits to shame, because when a new show drops, I never watch it straightaway,” he laughs. “It usually takes me about six months to get to a new show, so the fact that so many people are watching it within days of its release is both gratifying and shaming. You never know, when you make a work, how it’s going to be received, or whether it’s going to be read the way you intend it to be read. So far, so good.” Of course, Ayres is already well versed with the six-part series, which debuted globally on June 6 and transports audiences down under to Evelyn Bay, where the close-knit community is still reeling from a past tragedy. The story centres on Kieran Elliott, whose life changed forever when his brother, Finn Elliott, and Toby Gilroy drowned and a young girl, Gabby Birch, went missing. Fifteen years later, his guilt resurfaces as he returns to his … Continue reading Adapting to Survivors
Meeting The Danish Woman
Writer-director Benedikt Erlingsson discusses making Icelandic series Danska Konan (The Danish Woman), partnering with “extraordinary talent” Trine Dyrholm as the titular character, and why he didn’t want to Save the Cat.
Slow Horses rein at Apple TV+
FIRST LOOK: Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Jack Lowden return to lead the cast of Slow Horses season five, which will launch on Apple TV+ on Wednesday, September 24, 2025.
Sky explores Gomorrah – Origins
FIRST LOOK: Filming has wrapped on Gomorrah – Origins, a new prequel to the Italian mafia series that will debut on Sky and NOW in January 2026.
Karen Pirie sets ITV, BritBox return
FIRST LOOK: Lauren Lyle returns as Karen Pirie in the second season of the ITV and BritBox crime series, which is set to return to screens this summer.
Totally Outrageous
Executive producer Elizabeth Kilgarriff and writer Sarah Williams reflect on Outrageous, a six-part series that dramatises the lives of the aristocratic Mitford sisters in 1930s Britain, revealing why the title perfectly describes both its protagonists and the way their story is told.
Reflecting on rehab
Spanish writer and director Javier Giner speaks to DQ about drawing on his life experiences for Yo, Adicto (I, Addict), the compelling and poignant story of a man who vows to turn his life around after spiralling into addiction.
BBC opens The Cage
FIRST LOOK: Sheridan Smith and Michael Socha are pictured in The Cage, an upcoming BBC crime drama set in a Liverpool casino and written by The Responder’s Tony Schumacher.
Parent trap
Minu Kallis Ema (My Dear Mother) writer Raoul Suvi and director Doris Tääker speak to DQ about this Estonian drama, which uses a murder mystery to tell a story about addiction and abuse after a woman is accused of killing her mother.
Disney+ lands on Alien: Earth
TRAILER: Here’s the trailer for Alien: Earth, the upcoming sci-fi drama based on the film franchise that will debut on Hulu and Disney+ in August.
Hulu, Disney explore The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox
FIRST LOOK: Grace Van Patten stars as the title character in The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, a limited series coming to Hulu in the US and Disney+ worldwide this August.