DQ100 2024/25 – Part four

DQ100 2024/25 – Part four


By DQ
December 4, 2024

DQ100

In the final part of the DQ100 2024/25, DQ picks out a range of shows to tune in for and the actors, directors and writers making them, as well as some of the trends and trailblazers worth catching up with.

ACTORS

Sîlvia Abril
Actor and comedian Abril (Señor, dame paciencia) stars in Mamen Mayo, the first Spanish original series from SkyShowtime. Blending comedy and family drama, each episode follows mediator Mamen (Abril) and her team as they attempt to resolve conflicts of interest within families caught up in inheritance disputes – from a cabin in the woods to a restaurant on the beach, a successful manuscript and a sacred relic. Nostromo Pictures is producing.

Hazal Kaya
Kaya is the star of Sorgu (Beneath the Surface), the Turkish drama that has become the most streamed series to date on local platform TOD. Produced by Karga Seven Pictures and distributed by Eccho Rights, the series follows Kaya’s character, police officer Cihan, who finds herself grappling with a professional and personal crisis when her father is murdered. Compounding her dilemma, she is prohibited from investigating his death herself. Cihan’s growing romantic feelings for her colleague assigned to the case, Metin (played by Çağlar Ertuğrul), become even more complicated when Cihan’s sisters emerge as prime suspects. Kaya is one of Turkey’s biggest stars and is also known for roles in Netflix’s Midnight at the Pera Palace, Aşki Memnu, Adını Feriha Koydum and Bizim Hikaye.

Malachi Kirby
Kirby’s breakout role came in 2016’s Roots, a remake of the classic US drama, before he landed appearances in Small Axe entry Mangrove, Black Mirror episode Men Against Fire, Curfew, Devils and feature film Boiling Point, alongside Stephen Graham. He now reunites with Graham on A Thousand Blows, a Hulu and Disney+ series airing in 2025 that will transport viewers into the world of illegal boxing in 1880s Victorian London. Kirby plays Hezekiah Moscow, who is drawn into the criminal underbelly of the thriving boxing scene and meets Mary Carr (Erin Doherty), leader of notorious all-female gang The Forty Elephants, and Graham’s veteran boxer Sugar Goodson. Created by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders), the show is produced by The Story Collective in coproduction with Matriarch Productions and Water & Power Productions.

Camille Lou, Constance Labbé & Claire Romain
This trio head the cast of Cat’s Eyes, a live-action drama based on the cult manga title of the same name. They play the Chamade sisters – Tam (Lou), Sylvia (Labbé) and Alexia (Romain) – who are on the prowl for the most beautiful and protected artworks in Paris. After years apart, they reunite to steal an artwork on show at an exhibition at the Eiffel Tower, and hope their prize might shed some light on the disappearance of their father years earlier after a fire at his own gallery.
Picked up by Germany’s ZDF, Italy’s Rai, Belgium’s RTL and Switzerland’s RTS – plus Prime Video in Latin America and Japan – before its French premiere on TF1, Cat’s Eyes is produced by Big Band Story and distributed by Newen Connect.

Alicia Silverstone
The Clueless star is heading to Ireland for Irish Blood, a new series commissioned by Acorn TV that follows a lawyer searching for the truth about her father’s past. The six-part murder mystery stars Silverstone as Fiona, whose life has been marked by her father Declan’s decision to seemingly abandon her and her mother on her 10th birthday. But when a message from her father sends her to Ireland, Fiona learns about a secret family she didn’t know existed and that the reason for her father’s abandonment was a lie. The series is produced by Shaftesbury and Deadpan Pictures, in association with AMC Studios.

DIRECTORS

Amma Asante
The Bafta-winning British director is best known for films such as A United Kingdom and Belle, but has been stepping into television through shows including A Handmaid’s Tale and Mrs America. Her latest project sees her direct all six episodes of Smilla’s Sense of Snow, a series based on Danish author Peter Høeg’s novel and set in 2040 Copenhagen. Here, Smilla Jaspersen lives in a near-future surveillance state under threat from an impending energy crisis. She is alone and leads a withdrawn life until she meets a young Inuit boy who finds a way to her heart. When the boy suddenly dies in mysterious circumstances, Smilla wants to know why. Her search for answers leads her to the icy scenery of Greenland and right to the centre of dangerous political power games. The series is a Constantin Film production in coproduction with Viaplay, ARD Degeto Film and Baltic Film Services, in cooperation with Netflix Deutschland and in association with distributor ITV Studios.

Bertie Carvel
Carvel is best known for his on-screen roles in series such as The Crown, Doctor Foster, The Sister and Baghdad Central, not to mention his award-winning stage performances. He is also reprising his role as Adam Dalgliesh for the upcoming third season of crime drama Dalgliesh (pictured) – a run of three more two-part mysteries, once again based on PD James’s literary investigator. Carvel will make his directorial debut on story two, titled Cover Her Face (episodes three and four). Season three of the series is set in 1979 on the cusp of Margaret Thatcher’s election victory and sees Carvel’s character take on three highly sensitive cases – from a remote seminary already mired in scandal, to a wealthy family under political attack and a spate of killings at a nuclear power station. Dalgliesh is a New Pictures production for Channel 5 and Acorn TV, with All3Media International distributing.

Trent O’Donnell
The Colin from Accounts, Ghosts (Australia) and Population: 11 director is behind two upcoming series for Australian streamer Stan. The first, Sunny Nights, sees him working with Will Forte (Bodkin) and D’Arcy Carden (The Good Place) on a darkly comic drama about siblings Martin (Forte) and Vicki (Carden) Marvin, who venture to Sydney determined to start their spray tan business. But when they get caught up in the city’s criminal underworld, they must figure out how to stay alive, out of prison and in the black. It is produced by Jungle Entertainment and Echo Lake Entertainment, with distribution from Cineflix Rights. O’Donnell’s second new project is Good Cop/Bad Cop. It follows Lou (Leighton Meester) and Henry (Luke Cook), a sister and brother detective team in a small Pacific Northwest police force who must contend with colourful residents, a serious lack of resources and their very complicated dynamic with each other and their police chief, Big Hank (Clancy Brown) – who happens to be their father. The CW and Roku are also on board the series, which is produced by Future Shack Entertainment and Jungle Entertainment and distributed by ITV Studios.

Anne Sewitsky
The Norwegian filmmaker was behind Happy, the 2010 feature that became Norway’s entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Academy Awards the following year. Her television credits include Castle Rock, A Very British Scandal and Presumed Innocent. Now she is partnering with stars Melissa McCarthy and Clive Owen for Paramount+ limited series JonBenét Ramsey (working title), which explores the tragic unsolved murder of six-year-old beauty queen JonBenét and how her parents (played by McCarthy and Owen) deal with the loss of a child under intense public and media scrutiny. It is produced by MTV Entertainment Studios and 101 Studios, with production taking place in Calgary.

Stefano Sollima
Peacock has given a straight-to-series order to MIA, a South Florida-set crime thriller directed by Sollima, whose previous credits include standout Italian dramas ZeroZeroZero and Gomorrah. MIA centres on Etta Tiger Jonze, who sees her drug-running family slaughtered in front of her and then sets out to exact justice on those responsible, avenging her blood family while she builds her chosen family and rising from powerless orphan to South Florida’s most powerful criminal queenpin. Ozark co-creator Bill Dubuque is behind the series, which is produced by MRC.

WRITERS

Lluís Arcarazo
Arcarazo (El Judici) is the showrunner of El Mal Invisible (Quiet), an eight-part Spanish thriller based on a true story and set in Barcelona. In late April 2020 at the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown, authorities arrest a man accused of murdering various homeless people, one after another, on the streets of the Catalan city. The murders all follow the same modus operandi: all taking place while the victims are asleep and all involving extreme brutality. The series is produced by The Mediapro Studio and 3Cat for Catalonia’s public broadcaster TV3, while Disney+ has picked up the show for audiences across Spain.

Francesca Gardiner
Gardiner may have collected credits on some of television’s biggest shows – Succession, His Dark Materials and Killing Eve, among others – but surely her greatest challenge awaits after she was named showrunner and executive producer of HBO’s eagerly anticipated Harry Potter series. Partnering with director Mark Mylod (Succession, Game of Thrones), she is currently developing the first season of the series, which is pitched as a faithful adaptation of JK Rowling’s wizard books 13 years after the last of the eight feature films was released. It is produced by HBO in association with Brontë Film & TV and Warner Bros Television.

Allan Hawco
The Canadian actor has collected credits on shows such as Sullivan’s Crossing, Moonshine, Hudson & Rex, Departure and Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. Hawco also starred in Republic of Doyle, a comedy-drama about a private investigator on which he was also a co-creator, writer and executive producer. He is now reprising his multi-hyphenate role on Saint-Pierre, a crime procedural that starts as Inspector Donny ‘Fitz’ Fitzpatrick (Hawco) digs too deeply into a local politician’s nefarious activity and is exiled to work on the titular Newfoundland island. His arrival upsets Deputy Chief Geneviève ‘Arch’ Archambault, a Parisian transplant played by Josephine Jobert who is in Saint-Pierre for her own mysterious reasons. Hawco is also a writer and co-showrunner on the series, which is produced by his own Hawco Productions and will debut this winter on CBC. The show is distributed by Fifth Season.

Ailbhe Keogan
Bad Sisters and Run & Jump screenwriter Keogan has landed her first lead writing credit with Trespasses, an upcoming Channel 4 drama based on the novel by Louise Kennedy and starring Lola Petticrew, Tom Cullen and Gillian Anderson. Set in 1975 in a town outside Belfast, the story follows Catholic schoolteacher Cushla (Petticrew) who meets barrister Michael, an older Protestant married man who often defends IRA suspects and is friends with cultured Bohemians who enrage and intrigue Cushla. The two are worlds apart, and Cushla knows a relationship like this spells all kinds of trouble, but they are irresistibly drawn to one another. The four-part series is produced by Wildgaze Films, with All3Media International handling distribution.

Inci Gülen Oarr
Known for Turkish series including Elif, Canim Annem and Wounded Birds, Gülen is currently showrunner on Kuma (The Other Wife, pictured). The 100-hour daily drama tells the story of Ceylan, who runs away from home and meets Karan, a wealthy young businessman. They fall in love and soon are set to be married, but when Ceylan is framed for murder, Karan marries his brother’s widow instead and forces Ceylan to become his ‘kuma,’ a second wife to bear his children. The show is produced by Stellar Yapim and notably comes from a partnership between US producer VIP 2000 and Indian distributor GoQuest Media, which has sold the series to multiple territories before its debut in Turkey. .

SERIES

A Better Place
This eight-part ensemble drama imagines a world without prisons. Set in a fictional city, it sees a liberal mayor and a scientist introduce a revolutionary rehabilitation programme that aims to close down the local prison and reintegrate its inmates into society. But while some are strong supporters of the scheme, others are wary or scared, and the freed criminals face prejudice and must overcome failures to obtain the redemption they were promised. Focusing on the stories of scientists, social workers, politicians, victims and their families, A Better Place is produced by Komlizen Serien, StudioCanal Series, WDR and ARD Degeto for Germany’s ARD and Canal+ in France and Austria. StudioCanal is the distributor.

Generations
The latest drama from Danish pubcaster DR, due to air in spring 2025, Generationer (Generations) opens with the discovery of a mummified infant during the renovation of an apartment in Frederiksberg. Eighty-seven-year-old Martha lives in the same building and quickly takes responsibility for the murder, much to the surprise of her family, in a story all about family secrets. From writer Anna Emma Haudal (Doggystyle), the show’s cast includes Ulla Henningsen, Anette Støvelbæk, Rikke Eberhardt Isen, Alice Bier Zandén, Jan Linnebjerg, Simon Sears, Olga Schultz, Isi Gren-Sørensen and Albert Arthur Amiryan.

The Listeners
Rebecca Hall leads the cast of this drama from Element Pictures (Poor Things, Normal People), writer Jordan Tannahill and director Janicza Bravo – but perhaps the star of the show is the startling score from Devonté Hynes. Centring on themes of conspiracy, transcendence and belonging, the series centres on Claire (Hall), a popular English teacher who begins to hear a low humming sound that no one else around can hear. The noise starts to gradually upset the balance of her life, increasing tension between herself and her husband and daughter. Then when Claire bonds with a student, Kyle (Ollie West), who also hears the hum, they join a group of neighbours who claim the sound is a gift for a “chosen few.”

Like Water for Chocolate
Salma Hayek Pinault is among the executive producers on this Max adaptation of Laura Esquivel’s novel Como agua para chocolate (Like Water For Chocolate), starring Irene Azuela, Azul Guaita, Ana Valeria Becerril and Andrea Chaparro. Set in a world of magical realism during the Mexican Revolution, the story follows Tita and Pedro, two souls deeply in love yet unable to be together because of entrenched family customs. As Tita struggles between the destiny imposed on her by her family and her fight for love, her magical connection to cooking becomes an active resistance against oppression, allowing her to channel her deepest desires and passions into her recipes, transforming those who taste them. The show comes from Ventanarosa Productions, Endemol Shine America and Endemol Shine Boomdog.

Su Majestad
Airing on Prime Video worldwide in 2025, this royal comedy introduces Pilar, a young princess and future Queen of Spain who, suddenly and abruptly, must lead the royal family after a scandal taints her father, King Alfonso XIV, and sidelines him from the front line of public life for several months. Pilar must prove to the country that she is not as irresponsible, insolent, lazy and useless as everyone believes her to be – but they may be right. Filmed across Madrid, the show is produced by 100 Balas and Sayaka Producciones. The cast includes Anna Castillo, Ernesto Alterio, Pablo Derqui, Ramon Barea, Ana María Vidal and Lucía Díez.

TRENDS & TRAILBLAZERS

Noob
While television struggles to stem the tide of viewers flowing to TikTok, this Australian series (styled as n00b) stands as an example of how the social media platform could serve as an incubator for new talent, having started life as 12 short episodes before landing a full six-part series on New Zealand’s Three. Created by Victoria Boult and Rachel Fawcett, the story is set in 2005 and follows what happens when King of High School and all-around party animal Nikau (Max Crean) is outed, going from cool guy to social outcast. Forced to find a new group of friends, each of whom has been ‘othered’ by small-town New Zealand and finds escape online, Nikau must traverse the complicated world of high school (and the internet) in the pursuit of love, friendship, independence and the confidence to be one’s true self.

Puzzling murders
When it comes to crime drama, audiences love to solve a puzzle – and so too do the heroes of a pair of new series. In BBC comedy-drama Ludwig (pictured), David Mitchell is John ‘Ludwig’ Taylor, whose identical twin brother James mysteriously vanishes. John takes on his brother’s identity to uncover the truth behind his disappearance, but there’s a twist: John has lived a quiet, uneventful life, designing puzzles and avoiding the outside world, while his brother is a high-flying DCI leading a major crimes team in Cambridge. The show, produced by Big Talk Studios, was recently recommissioned for a second season after becoming the BBC’s biggest scripted series of the year.
Meanwhile, Channel 5 has commissioned The Puzzle Lady, a six-part series from Factual Fiction and December Films that stars Phyllis Logan (Downton Abbey) as Cora Felton, the titular Puzzle Lady. In the story, based on the novels by Parnell Hall, Cora becomes involved in a police investigation when a crossword puzzle is inexplicably left on a dead body.

Austen found
A new Jane Austen adaptation is never far from the screen, and a trio of upcoming projects are set to showcase her work – and the author herself. In the BBC’s The Other Bennet Sister, written by Sarah Quintrell (The Power) and produced by Bad Wolf, the story will shine the spotlight on Mary Bennet, the seemingly unremarkable and overlooked middle sister in Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, taking her from her family home in Meryton to the soirées of Regency London and the peaks and vales of the Lake District – all in search of independence, romance and, most elusive of all, self-love and acceptance.
The BBC has also picked up Miss Austen, produced by Bonnie Productions for Masterpiece in the US and distributed by Federation Studios. It stars Keeley Hawes and Rose Leslie in a four-parter that takes a mystery – Cassandra Austen (Hawes, pictured) notoriously burning her famous sister Jane’s letters – and reimagines it as a witty and heartbreaking story of sisterly love. Meanwhile, Dolly Alderton (Everything I Know About Love) is behind a new take on Austen’s famous Pride & Prejudice, a project that is in early development with Netflix.

Sherlock stories
With Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous literary sleuth now in the public domain, the character is returning to television in a number of different productions. After bringing Holmes to the big screen, director Guy Ritchie is behind a Prime Video series called Young Sherlock, with Hero Fiennes Tiffin in the title role.
The CW in the US and Discovery+ in the UK and Ireland are among the broadcasters attached to another series, Sherlock & Daughter (pictured), in which the renowned detective (played by David Thewlis) finds himself mysteriously unable to investigate a sinister case without risking the lives of his closest friends, while a young American (Blu Hunt) learns her missing father may be the esteemed detective, after her mother’s shocking and unexplainable murder. Created by Brendan Foley, the show comes from Starlings Television Distribution, Albion Television, StoryFirst and distributor Federation Studios.
A third series brings a fun twist to the Sherlock legend. Mademoiselle Holmes centres on Charlie Holmes (Lola Dewaere) – a shy, reserved and socially awkward cop who struggles to fit in at the police station where she works. However, a car accident suddenly turns Charlie’s world upside down, transforming her from an introvert to an extrovert with drive, energy and insight that make her a brilliant detective, just like her more famous relation. Distributed by Newen Connect, the six-part series is produced by Newen France for TF1.
Then there’s Watson, a new CBS procedural that stars Morris Chestnut as Holmes’s faithful partner Dr John Watson in a project described as a part-medical, part-detective drama set a year after Holmes’s death. It is produced by CBS Studios and shopped by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

Full English
Despite an increased appetite for local-language programming, English-language series remain the most attractive to non-English buyers – and now an increasing number of international productions not made in the UK or the US are being produced in English. For three seasons, Spanish drama The Head has blended murder mystery and survival thriller with a global cast and a multinational writers room, backed by The Mediapro Studio for broadcasters such as Hulu Japan and Canal+ in France.
Turkish producer Ay Yapim and distributor Madd Entertainment are behind El Turco, said to be the first ever English-language Turkish drama, starring Can Yaman as a soldier who winds up in an Italian village and comes to fight for its people. Another example is Costiera (pictured), a Prime Video Italy series from producer Lux Vide and distributor Fremantle that stars Jesse Williams as a former US marine who works as a fixer for rich tourists in trouble in Positano.
Then there are Welsh series, such as Hinterland, Cleddau (The One That Got Away) and Y Golau (The Light in the Hall), that have been produced in both Welsh and English, the latter to better attract international sales.

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