I don’t often post acquisitions on the main blog (that’s what the UK TV Air Dates section is there for!), but this is such a major pick up, it really deserves highlighting!
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Channel 4 have the UK first run rights, to Joss Whedon’s ‘Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.’, AND they’re airing it close to the US air date this Autumn! It’s due to premiere 24th September 2013 in the USA, so I would hope that means we get it early October in the UK.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. stars Clark Gregg as Agent Avengers/Iron Man’s Phil Coulson heading a team for worldwide law enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D. who protect the world from ‘the strange and the unknown’.
Coulson’s team consists of Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton – Blue Bloods, Army Wives), highly trained in combat and espionage; Agent Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen – ER, Stargate Universe), expert pilot and martial artist; Agent Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker – The Fades), brilliant engineer; and Agent Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge – Hollyoaks), genius bio-chemist. Joining them on their journey into mystery is new recruit and computer hacker, Skye (Chloe Bennet – Nashville).
There are also a few of Whedon alumni popping up in the casting already, including J. August Richards (Gunn in Angel), Ron Glass (Shepard in Firefly), and i’d expect more in future. Additional cast includes Cobie Smulders (HIMYM) who is already confirmed as reprising her role as Maria Hill, and english actor Ian Hart (Backbeat, Harry Potter) has a recurring role.
The writing team is also pretty stellar. Obviously Joss, his brother Jeb and his wife Maurissa Tancharoen (Dollhouse, Spartacus, Dr. Horrible), but also Angel showrunner Jeff Bell, Brent Fletcher (Spartacus, Lost, Angel), Rafe Judkins (My Own Worst Enemy, Chuck), Paul Zbyszewski (Lost, Hawaii Five-0), Lauren LeFranc (Chuck, My Own Worst Enemy, Hemlock Grove), and Shalisha Francis (Castle). Nice to see a couple of Chuck and My Own Worst Enemy (a highly underrated show!) in there.
Hostages
http://youtu.be/8thzMN2jj6c
If that wasn’t enough, Channel 4 have also picked up Jerry Bruckheimer’s Hostages, starring Toni Collette (Hitchcock, The Hours, Muriel’s Wedding), Dylan McDermott (American Horror Story, The Practice) and Tate Donovan (Argo, Damages, Friends). Collette plays Ellen Sanders, a top US surgeon in Washington, chosen by the President to treat him. All is well, until masked men invade her home and take her husband (Donovan) and children hostage, threatening to harm them unless she kills the President when she operates on him. But Ellen will do anything to protect her family… As will Duncan Carlisle (McDermott), an FBI agent at the centre of a conspiracy involving the President. As tensions mount and Ellen fights for time, it becomes clear that the outwardly idyllic Sanders family isn’t as perfect as originally thought…nor are their captors as evil as one might suspect. Each hour-long episode (15 episodes in the season) occurs over a 24-hour period.
The 100
http://youtu.be/Bum7f5XAbkE
After the earth is devastated by a nuclear apocalypse, the world’s only survivors were the inhabitants of 12 international space stations orbiting the Earth. Nearly 100 years after the destruction of the planet, the survivors now number 4,000, and resources on their dying “Ark” (the 12 stations now linked together in space) are fast running out. The leaders of the Ark take ruthless steps to ensure the survival of the human race – including secretly exiling 100 juvenile prisoners to Earth’s surface to test whether it has yet become habitable again. For these hundred, this alien planet is a mysterious realm – magical one moment, lethal the next and always teeming with the unknown. The cast of the series includes Eliza Taylor (Neighbours), Paige Turco (Damages, Party of Five, American Gothic), Thomas McDonell (Suburgatory), with Isaiah Washington (Grey’s Anatomy) and Henry Ian Cusick (Lost). The 100 is based on the book series by Kass Morgan. The executive producers are Elizabeth Craft (The Vampire Diaries, Dollhouse), Sarah Fain (The Vampire Diaries, Dollhouse), Jason Rothenberg (upcoming Twilight Zone feature), Leslie Morgenstein (The Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl) and Gina Girolamo (The Lying Game). It will air in the UK on E4 and is from Bonanza Productions Inc. in association with Alloy Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television and CBS Television Studios for The CW Television Network in the US.
The Tomorrow People
http://youtu.be/JwXVsRUi53k
They are the next evolutionary shift of mankind – a generation of humans born with paranormal abilities. They are the Tomorrow People. Based on the original UK TV series from the 1970s, the show follows the trials and tribulations faced by this genetically advanced race who have the abilities to teleport and communicate telepathically. Hunted by a paramilitary group of scientists known as Ultra who see the Tomorrow People as a very real threat, the outcast group hides out in an abandoned subway station just beneath the surface of the human world. However, Stephen Jameson (Robbie Amell), the newest member of this small group of Tomorrow People, is torn between his loyalty to the group who have become his new family, the offer of the Ultra who promise him his old life back and his own desires to explore his father’s mysterious disappearance. The Tomorrow People is from Bonanza Productions Inc. in association with Berlanti Productions, FremantleMedia, Warner Bros. Television and CBS Television Studios for The CW Television Network in the US and will be shown in the UK on E4. Executive producers for the series are Greg Berlanti (Arrow, Brothers and Sisters, Dawson’s Creek), Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries), Danny Cannon (CSI, Nikita), Phil Klemmer (Chuck), Thom Beers (Deadliest Catch) and Craig Cegielski (Camelot), with co-executive producer Melissa Kellner Berman (Arrow). The show is based upon the original series The Tomorrow People, created by Roger Price.