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Deluded Simon Porter, dreams of becoming a doctor – but he has to start from the bottom and be a porter. His plan? Work his way up to be the best porter the NHS has ever seen.
Doc Martin is a British television comedy drama series starring Martin Clunes in the title role. It was created by Dominic Minghella after the character of Dr. Martin Bamford in the 2000 comedy film Saving Grace. The show is set in the fictional seaside village of Portwenn and filmed on location in the village of Port Isaac, Cornwall, England, with most interior scenes shot in a converted local barn. Five series aired between 2004 and 2011, together with a feature-length special that aired on Christmas Day 2006. Series 6 began airing on ITV on 2 September 2013.
Steve and Nicky are both on their second marriages and have decided that moving to the countryside from the city is the answer to all their dreams. They’ve watched all the TV relocation shows and read the glossy lifestyle magazines and fell in love with the idea of ‘getting away from the rat race’.
Anthology series based on short stories by science-fiction author Philip K. Dick.
Former police officer Robert and his wife Katy left city life behind them after Robert was injured, whilst trying to protect a witness in his care. The witness, Susan Reynolds was fatally shot. Robert has been struggling with the guilt he feels over the death of Susan. In a bid to put the past behind them, Robert and Katy now run a guest house, hidden away in the idyllic Lake District. A surprise visitor turns up, DCI Mark Maxwell, an ex-colleague and old friend. He suggests that the guest house is perfectly positioned to operate as a safe house, Robert is tempted but will Katy agree?
Cuffs is a fresh, authentic and visceral drama that will take the audience on an exhilarating ride through the challenges of front-line policing. Adrenalized and vibrant, the show is packed full of dramatic incidents and colourful characters. From a booby trapped cannabis farm in a suburban semi to an elderly farmer’s wife with a shotgun, the stories are surprising and exciting. There will be more absurd altercations – such as a middle-class dog-napping or fisticuffs between pensioners – as well as the daily grind of speeding drivers, city-centre shoplifters and Saturday night drinkers.
Detective dramas featuring private investigator Cormoran Strike based on the novels by Robert Galbraith (J. K. Rowling’s pen name).
The X Factor is a British television music competition to find new singing talent, contested by aspiring singers drawn from public auditions. Created by Simon Cowell, the show began in September 2004 and has since aired annually from August/September through to December. The show is produced by FremantleMedia’s Thames and Cowell’s production company SYCOtv. It is broadcast on the ITV network in the United Kingdom and TV3 in Ireland, with spin-off behind-the-scenes show The Xtra Factor screened on ITV2. It is the originator of the international The X Factor franchise. The X Factor was devised as a replacement for the highly successful Pop Idol, which was put on indefinite hiatus after its second series, largely because Cowell, who was a judge on Pop Idol, wished to launch a show to which he owned the television rights. The perceived similarity between the two shows later became the subject of a legal dispute. The “X Factor” of the title refers to the undefinable “something” that makes for star quality.
The original judging panel was Cowell, Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh. Dannii Minogue joined the panel in series 4, and Cheryl Cole replaced Osbourne in series 5 after her departure. After series 7, Cowell and Cole both left to judge the American version of the show whilst Minogue left the show due to commitments on Australia’s Got Talent. Kelly Rowland, Tulisa Contostavlos and Gary Barlow then joined Walsh on the judging panel for series 8, though Rowland announced she would not return for series 9 and was replaced by Nicole Scherzinger. Osbourne later returned in 2013, replacing Contostavlos. Since 2007, the show has been presented by Dermot O’Leary, who replaced original host Kate Thornton. The show is split into a series of phases, following the contestants from auditions through to the grand finale. In the original televised audition phase of the show, contestants sang in an audition room in front of just the judges. From series 6 onwards, auditionees sing on a stage in front of the judges and a live audience. Successful auditionees go through to “bootcamp” and then to “judges’ houses”, where judges narrow down the acts in their category down to three or four acts to mentor for the live shows, where the public vote for their favourite acts following weekly live performances by the contestants.
A serial killer thriller told in reverse, unravelling the truth behind a series of murders as DCI Gabriel Markham hunts down a brutal killer.
The story of Jim Worth, an expat British police officer starting a new life with his family as police chief in Little Big Bear, an idyllic town near the Rocky Mountains. When his small town is overrun by migrant workers from a massive new oil refinery – the wave of drugs, prostitution and organised crime that follows them threatens to sweep away everything in its wake.
Grand Designs is a British television series produced by Talkback Thames and broadcast on Channel 4 which features unusual and often elaborate architectural homebuilding projects.
The programme has been presented by Kevin McCloud since it first aired in April 1999, and 141 episodes have been broadcast in twelve series.
The show looks at whether a partner can be found based solely on the naked body and animal magnetism. Two singletons join host Anna Richardson as they seek to choose a date from a selection of six naked people, who will be revealed to them one body part at a time. They then get dressed and head off on a date, to see if there is any chemistry when the clothes come on.
A British husband-and-wife comedy writing team travel to Hollywood to remake their successful British TV series, with disastrous results.
Hosts Tanner Foust, Adam Ferrara and Rutledge Wood embark on adventures as they test cars in extreme stunts, intense challenges and first-person reviews using their unique perspectives.
Celebrity Big Brother is a British reality television game show in which a number of celebrity contestants live in an isolated house trying to avoid being evicted by the public with the aim of winning a large cash prize being donated to the winner’s nominated charity at the end of the run. The programme aired annually between 2001 and 2011, until 2012 when, for the first time, two series aired in the same year. This process has since continued.
The show is a spin-off of the original series Big Brother. There are a number of differences between Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother. For example, Celebrity Big Brother lasts for a much shorter time than Big Brother and the celebrities – so long as they are not ejected or quit the programme – are paid for their participation.
From its inception in 2001, Celebrity Big Brother was broadcast on Channel 4 and its sister channel E4, until Big Brother was cancelled by Channel 4 in 2010 due to falling ratings. Celebrity Big Brother has been broadcast on Channel 5 and its sister channel 5* since Channel 5 acquired the rights in 2011. During its run on Channel 4, Celebrity Big Brother was presented by Davina McCall, who also presented the original show.
As DI Helen Weeks grapples apprehensively with pregnancy, she’s compelled to return to her loathed rural home town of Polesford, Derbyshire with her partner and fellow detective Paul. Two girls have been abducted and the man arrested is married to Helen’s childhood best friend, Linda Bates. As a result, Linda has been drawn into the centre of a media storm and the local police force is under enormous pressure to get their man. But is he guilty? And why is Helen so desperate to come to Linda’s aid, after avoiding Polesford for all these years?
Keeping Up Appearances is a British sitcom created and written by Roy Clarke for the BBC. Centred on the life of eccentric, social-climbing snob Hyacinth Bucket, the sitcom follows her obsessive and determined attempts to impress in middle class society and portray herself as more affluent than she truly is.
The show stars Patricia Routledge, who received two BAFTA nominations for her performance as Hyacinth. Broadcast between 1990 and 1995 on BBC One, the sitcom spawned five series and 44 episodes—4 of which are Christmas specials. Keeping Up Appearances was a great success in the UK and also captivated a large audience in the US, Canada, and Australia, but production ceased in 1995 when Routledge wanted to move on to other projects. Since its original release, all five series—including Christmas specials—are available on DVD. In 2004, the sitcom was ranked 12th in the countdown of Britain’s Best Sitcom. It is regularly repeated worldwide.
Tense drama series about the different challenges faced by the British Security Service as they work against the clock to safeguard the nation. The title is a popular colloquialism for spies, and the series follows the work of a group of MI5 officers based at the service’s Thames House headquarters, in a highly secure suite of offices known as The Grid.
Spaced: the anti-Friends, in that it examines the lives of common 20 somethings, but in a way that is more down to earth and realistic. Here we have Daisy and Tim; two ‘young’ adults with big dreams just trying to get by in this crazy world. They are thrown together in a common pursuit of tenancy, which they find by posing as a couple. The house has a landlady and an oddball artist living there. The series explores the ins and outs of London living.
Black Books centres around the foul tempered and wildly eccentric bookshop owner Bernard Black. Bernard’s devotion to the twin pleasures of drunkenness and wilful antagonism deepens and enriches both his life and that of Manny, his assistant. Bearded, sweet and good, Manny is everything that Bernard isn’t and is punished by Bernard relentlessly just for the crime of existing. They depend on each other for meaning as Fran, their oldest friend, depends on them for distraction.
Black Books is a haven of books, wine and conversation, the only threat to the group’s peace and prosperity is their own limitless stupidity.
David Attenborough celebrates the amazing variety of the natural world in this epic documentary series, filmed over four years across 64 different countries.
The Village is a BBC TV series written by Peter Moffat. The drama is set in a Derbyshire village in the 20th century. The first series of what Moffat hopes will become a 42-hour TV drama was broadcast in spring 2013 and covered the years 1914 to 1920. A second series has been confirmed for 2014 which will continue the story into the 1920s. Future series would be set in the Second World War, post-war Austerity Britain, and so on.
The Village tells the story of life in a Derbyshire village through the eyes of a central character, Bert Middleton. Bert has been portrayed as a boy by Bill Jones, as a teen by Alfie Stewart, and as an old man by David Ryall. John Simm plays Bert’s father John Middleton, an alcoholic Peak District farmer, and Maxine Peake plays Bert’s mother, Grace. Peake is a preferred actress of the writer, who has called her “the best actress of her generation”, and she has featured in two previous Moffat series, Criminal Justice and Silk.
Writer Peter Moffat has spoken of wanting to create ‘a British Heimat’, alluding to Edgar Reitz’s epic German saga Heimat, which followed one extended family in a region of Rhineland from 1919 to 1982. Unlike Downton Abbey, this version of history is a working-class history—”domestics are expected to face the walls when the master walks by”.
Derek is a loyal nursing home caretaker who sees only the good in his quirky co-workers as they struggle against prejudice and shrinking budgets to care for their elderly residents.
A three part dramatization of the terrifying and bizarre real events that took place at an ordinary house in Enfield during the autumn of 1977. Adapted from Guy Lyon Playfair’s book This House is Haunted.
Arthur & George is a three-part adaptation of Julian Barnes’ novel about Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle as played by actor Martin Clunes.
Set in 1906 in Staffordshire, Hampshire and London the drama follows Sir Arthur and his trusted secretary, Alfred ‘Woodie’ Wood as they investigate the case of George Edalji, a young Anglo-Indian solicitor who was imprisoned for allegedly mutilating animals and writing obscene letters.
The journey of Jean Holloway – a therapist who begins to develop dangerous and intimate relationships with the people in her patients’ lives.
After newlywed Georgina’s billionaire husband Constantine is killed in a yacht explosion, she is shocked to discover the fortune and lifestyle he maintained was surrounded by violence, lies and murder. She soon must step out of her comfort zone to protect the family…and herself.
The search for a serial killer becomes a matter of life and death for detective Annie Redford, who is trying to cope with her first murder case.
Kathleen and Alfie Moon arrive in the sleepy Irish village of Redwater on a quest to find Kathleen’s long-lost son Luke, who was given up for adoption to an Irish family 32 years ago. EastEnders spin-off series.
The story of three of the children who were victims in the 2012 grooming and sex trafficking case in Rochdale, for which nine men were convicted and sentenced. The drama explores how these girls were groomed, how they were ignored by the authorities directly responsible for protecting them, and how they eventually made themselves heard.
In 1935, financially strapped widow Louisa Durrell, whose life has fallen apart, decides to move from England, with her four children (three sons, one daughter), to the island of Corfu, Greece. Once there, the family moves into a dilapidated old house that has no electricity and that is crumbling apart. But life on Corfu is cheap, it’s an earthly paradise, and the Durrells proceed to forge their new existence, with all its challenges, adventures, and forming relationships.