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Monday 31 January 2022

COMPETITION: Win Soulmates Season One on DVD


Soulmates Season One DVD  - Released from 7th February

And to celebrate we have a great competition for you and 3 copies on DVD to give away.

Synopsis: 
Written by Emmy® Award-winner and co-creator Will Bridges (Stranger Things, Black Mirror) with co- creator and producer Brett Goldstein (Ted Lasso, Adult Life Skills), Soulmates is a thrilling sci-fi anthology, exploring an entirely new science that unequivocally tells you who your soulmate is. One test. True love guaranteed...

Delving into six standalone stories of love, loss and betrayal, Soulmates arrives on DVD and digital 7 February 2022, courtesy of Acorn Media International – just in time for Valentines viewing. 

Approximately 15 years in the future, a company called Soul Connex has developed a test that can determine the person you were most meant to love...with 100 percent accuracy. Each self-contained, star-studded episode explores the results of this new test and its impact on a myriad of complex relationships. 

The line-up includes: Bill Skasgård (Stephen King’s It, Deadpool 2), Nathan Stewart Jarrett (Misfits, Utopia), Sarah Snook (Succession, Steve Jobs), Kingsley Ben-Adir (One Night in Miami, Peaky Blinders), JJ Feild (Lost in Space, Turn up Charlie), Malin Åkerman (Chick Fight, Watchmen), Shamier Anderson (Wynonna Earp, Destroyer), Betsy Brandt (Breaking Bad, Life in Pieces) and Charlie Heaton (Stranger Things, The New Mutants). 

From crumbling marriages, the exciting possibility of new love, the grief of mourning a soulmate you never knew, and the leap of faith required to jump into a life with someone new, Soulmates asks the ultimate question: is love destiny or choice? 

Pre-Order from Amazon at https://amzn.to/3ob6deg

For your chance to win just answer the question below.

COMPETITION CLOSED

Terms and conditions
1. Closing date 14-02-22
2. No alternative prize is available
3. When the competition ends as indicated on this page, any and all entries received after this point will not count and emails blacklisted due to not checking this page first.
4. Winners will be chosen randomly and will be informed via email.
5. Entries that come directly from other websites will not be accepted.


Wednesday 26 January 2022

Interview with Amara Karan - Hope Street

The ten-part drama will be set in the fictional town of Port Devine on the coast of Northern Ireland, and will centre on the town's police department and the mysterious arrival of English Detective Constable Leila Hussain, played by Amara Karan (The Night Of), the town's first Muslim police officer.

The series will chronicle the ups and downs of individuals working in the police department as they cope with everyday policing in the picturesque seaside town, with each episode having a self-contained criminal scenario.

--

Amara Karan plays DC Leila Hussain

What attracted you to the role?

The money!! Haha... just kidding... I loved that this character is in a compromised situation in terms of her personal safety from the outset and so she has to assimilate, hide, duck and dive personal questions, and yet she sticks out in her new environment like a sore thumb.

What research did you do?

None! The wonderful writers did the work for me. Also my character is discovering the people and the place as she goes.  

How did you find filming in Donaghadee?

It was so fun because the people in Donaghadee were so proud of their town and went out of their way to make us feel welcome. And many were heavily involved in the show, like Brian, who runs the sailing club. It's a magical spot on the Irish Sea, which is very cold but can be extremely calm like a lake. You can see different weather systems in the distance over England, Scotland and the Isle of Man and enjoy rainbows on the horizon.

What do you hope the audience will take from this drama?

I hope the audience enjoys the warmth and wit of all of these small town characters, who might have their disagreements, but in the end, always have each other's back.  

Was there a particular moment during filming which stands out?

Doing the boat scenes while having a bad tummy was a very unpleasant experience! Thankfully my modesty just about remained intact! Also my scenes with Karl O'Neill were very memorable and he has become a friend!

Harder, hotter and tougher - The Bridge is back

The Bridge, Channel 4's gruelling reality competition, returns for a second season in a fresh tropical locale. There's double the drama and double the prize money on the line as two teams compete to be the first to win a £200k jackpot.

The eight-part series is hosted by AJ Odudu, and it follows 16 strangers who join together for the possibility to win a large financial award, but are unaware of the epic struggle that would be required to take the money home.

To take on the ultimate test of physical ability, mental talent, and teamwork, the candidates must set their egos and differences aside. In a race to reach the riches kept on top of 'Fortune Rock,' the teams must build a bridge over 1,000 feet of water in just 12 days. Will the first person to reach the money opt to share it with their teammates?

Coming soon.

The first look image for the second series of Sky Original comedy Bloods has been released.

Sky has released a sneak peek at the second season of the critically acclaimed comedy BLOODS. The quirky dream team Wendy and Maleek, played by BAFTA-nominated Samson Kayo and Golden Globe-nominated Jane Horrocks, return as we follow them and their paramedic colleagues in the life-saving realm of a south London emergency service. The series will be broadcast in two parts on Sky Comedy and the streaming service NOW, with the first five episodes premiering in March 2022.

The second season introduces a new source of friction for Wendy and Maleek in the form of Wendy's obnoxious son, Spencer (Nathan Foad). Katherine Kelly (Innocent, Liar) joins the cast as the acting therapist and listening ear at the ambulance station.

Coming in March

Monday 24 January 2022

KIN: the gritty Irish gangland drama - Starring Charlie Cox, Clare Dunne, Ciarán Hinds & Aidan Gillen

 

Kin is a powerful, enthralling and slick new eight-part Irish gang drama, from AMC Networks that’s set for its UK Premiere exclusively on Sundance Now via Amazon Prime Video Channels on 24 February 2022.

This thrilling, critically acclaimed drama follows the Kinsella clan – who, when their boy is killed – set off a gangland war with an international cartel – a war that is impossible to win. As the violence escalates, the in-fighting begins and the body count rises. There will be blood… lots of it.

With a sterling cast including Charlie Cox (Daredevil, Spiderman, Boardwalk Empire), Clare Dunne (Herself, Spiderman: Far From Home), Aidan Gillen (Game of Thrones, The Wire) and Ciarán Hinds (Game of Thrones, The Terror) and Peter McKenna (The Last Kingdom, Red Rock) as showrunner/executive producer, writer, and creator, alongside Ciarán Donnelly (Altered Carbon, Vikings) who also serves as executive producer, this hard-hitting drama packs real punch.

In a tale of David versus Goliath the Kinsellas are out-numbered, out-financed and out-gunned.  They find themselves holed up in their Dublin stronghold while their businesses fail, and family members and associates are picked off by one by one…. But the Kinsellas have something the cartel does not… the unbreakable family bond and the power of their brood.

Kin is a dark and thrilling tale of gangsters who on the surface appear to live ultimate celebrity lifestyle with a world of power, glamour and riches, but underneath lurks a deadly world of drugs, guns, undercover assassins and murder.

Is blood truly thicker than water in Kin?

Sundance Now, the streaming service from AMC Networks, is available as an Amazon Prime Video Channels add on in the UK.

Exclusive Premiere: Thursday 24th February

Episodes: 8

Saturday 22 January 2022

Star Trek: Picard Season Two Trailer


The official trailer for season two of ViacomCBS's successful original series Star Trek: Picard was released today by ViacomCBS's streaming service, Paramount+. Season two of Star Trek: Picard will release exclusively for Paramount+ subscribers in the United States on Thursday, March 3. Following the launch, new episodes of the 10-episode second season will air on Thursdays every week. The teaser also features a first look at Academy Award winner Whoopi Goldberg, who reprises her beloved role as Guinan from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The renowned Jean-Luc Picard and his crew go on a bold and exciting new voyage in Season 2: into the past. Picard must recruit the help of old and new friends to tackle the dangers of 21st-century Earth in a desperate race against time to safeguard the galaxy's future – and face the ultimate test from one of his greatest adversaries.

Patrick Stewart reprises his legendary role as Jean-Luc Picard, which he played for seven seasons on Star Trek: The Next Generation, in Star Trek: Picard, which follows this iconic character into his next chapter.


Thursday 20 January 2022

The Responder is a unique new crime drama from Dancing Ledge Productions, the creators of The Salisbury Poisonings.

The Responder, written by ex-police officer Tony Schumacher for his first original television series, puts a mirror up to the emotional extremes of life on the front lines of British policing - at times darkly humorous, at times achingly heartbreaking, and always demanding.

Chris Carson (Martin Freeman) is a crisis-stricken, ethically compromised, unconventional emergency response officer who is sent to a series of night shifts on the beat in Liverpool. Chris is forced to take on a new rookie partner Rachel while fighting to keep his head above water both personally and professionally (Adelayo Adedayo). Both quickly learn that their life in this high-pressure, never-ending nighttime environment depends on them either aiding or killing each other.

Coming Soon

Wednesday 19 January 2022

The last series of Happy Valley begins filming, with new and returning cast members announced.

Sarah Lancashire reprises her legendary role as Sergeant Catherine Cawood in six new episodes, which Sally Wainwright and Sarah Lancashire have long regarded as the final chapter in the Happy Valley saga.

As previously revealed, James Norton and Siobhan Finneran will reprise their roles as Catherine's antagonist, Tommy Lee Royce, a murderer and sex offender, and Catherine's sister, Clare Cartwright, a recovering addict.

Con O'Neill will also return as Clare's recovering alcoholic lover Neil Ackroyd, it was announced today. Nevison Gallagher will be played by George Costigan, with Catherine's police colleague Ann played by Charlie Murphy. Derek Riddell as Richard Cawood, Karl Davies as Daniel Cawood, Susan Lynch as Alison Garrs, Rick Warden as Mike Taylor, Vincent Franklin as Andy Shepherd, and Rhys Connah as Catherine's grandson Ryan Cawood will all return to Happy Valley.

For series three, Amit Shah (The Other One, The Long Call), Mark Stanley (The Girl Before, White House Farm), and Mollie Winnard (All Creatures Great And Small, Four Lives) join the ensemble and will play crucial roles in Happy Valley's last chapter.

The Chelsea Detective - Official Trailer

 


In this brand-new Acorn TV Original drama produced and co-written by Peter Fincham, Adrian Scarborough (Killing Eve, Gavin & Stacey, The King's Speech, 1917) takes the lead. This four-part series premieres exclusively on Acorn TV in the United Kingdom.

After divorcing from his art dealer wife Astrid (Anamaria Marinca – 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days; Sex Traffic), Detective Inspector Max Arnold (Scarborough) lives on a houseboat on the Thames in Chelsea, mere yards from some of Europe's most precious real estate. The lovely borough is full of lovely people, but there is a dark underbelly of poverty, violence, greed – and murder. Max's dedication and acumen ensure that he will find a way to uncover the truth and bring those responsible to justice, regardless of their riches or prestige.

DC Arnold and his trusted colleague, Streatham-born D.C. Priya Shamsie, played by Sonita Henry (Luther, Krypton), investigate a slew of intriguing cases ranging from the bizarre to the complex, including the death of a lonely stonemason on the London Underground, which appears to Max to be a real-life haunting. Could they come up with a more practical explanation when they learn more about his life?

Tuesday 18 January 2022

The teaser for Sky's highly awaited documentary on Janet Jackson, has been released, along with the premiere date.

Sky has released a trailer for Janet Jackson's eagerly awaited documentary. The four-part documentary, produced by Workerbee (a Banijay UK company) and co-produced by AEC (Associated Entertainment Corporation), explores the life storey of icon Janet Jackson in her own words, and will air on Sky Documentaries in two double bills on consecutive nights, with all four episodes available on NOW from Monday, January 31.

This will be the definitive report on Janet Jackson, one of the best-selling and highest-earning artists in music history, as we commemorate the 40th anniversary of her debut album. Janet has had a lot of success, but she's also witnessed a lot of sadness. In the face of intense public scrutiny, she has had a difficult private life. Janet Jackson for the first time ever raises the curtain on her private life and unveils the most intimate moments of the diva ever caught on camera, leaving no stone untouched.

Janet returns to her hometown of Gary, Indiana, for a two-night, four-hour documentary event to witness where her extraordinary adventure began. She begins to dwell on her own life and her ascension to the top. Janet covers everything from her Superbowl appearance with Justin Timberlake in 2004, to the controversies surrounding her brother Michael Jackson, to becoming a mother later in life in a way she's never done before.

The film explores difficult topics such as family connections, drug addiction, race relations, sexuality, and the Jacksons' rags to riches storey, all while using great archive footage from Janet's long and illustrious career.

Janet Jackson is coming to Sky Documentaries and streaming service NOW Monday 31 January.

Wednesday 12 January 2022

Ridley, an Adrian Dunbar detective series, begins filming in Lancashire.

Ridley, an ITV detective drama featuring Adrian Dunbar as the titular character, has started filming in Lancashire. The retired detective, who is now working as a consultant, reunites with his former protégée, DI Carol Farman, who is now in command of investigations and is played by Bronagh Waugh (Unforgotten, The Fall).

Filming across the North of England the Ridley cast also includes Terence Maynard (Time, Coronation Street) as DCI Paul Goodwin, George Bukhari (Years and Years, The A Word) as DC Darren Lakhan, Georgie Glen (The Crown, Call the Midwife) as pathologist Dr Wendy Newstone. The regular cast will also include Bhavna Limbachia (Citizen Khan, Coronation Street), Aidan McArdle (The Trial of Christine Keeler, The Fall) and Julie Graham (Shetland, Penance).

Adrian Dunbar:
"Ridley has begun shooting and we really couldn't be off to a better start. Despite the wintry weather, everything from cast and crew right down to the catering is excellent. Bronagh Waugh has stepped into her character's shoes seamlessly and we have been joined by some great actors with more to come."

Restaurants to go head-to-head in a new Channel 4 daytime show "Come Dine With Me: The Professionals"

In an all-new twist on the iconic series commissioned for Channel 4 daytime, Come Dine With Me is going professional.

Teams of professional chefs and restaurateurs will compete in Come Dine With Me: The Professionals for the title of greatest independent restaurant in their town, county, or city.

Three local restaurants will compete for the renowned CDWM:TP award and a monetary reward shared among the winner restaurant's staff in each self-contained episode. Each restaurant will be represented by a duo — for example, the owner and the head chef – who will host their competitors for a meal designed to wow. The meal will take place during a regular service, giving people the opportunity to observe the ambience, food, and service. The visiting restaurant partners will score the evening out of 20 at the end of each dinner, with the highest total score taking home the prize. As the narrator of each programme, legendary CDWM voiceover Dave Lamb will bring the action together.

In 2022, Channel 4 and All 4 will premiere Come Dine With Me: The Professionals.

Tuesday 11 January 2022

Scarlett Moffatt will look into the development of tics and Tourette's in youngsters.

Doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital and Guy's and St Thomas' have noted a considerable increase in the number of teenagers presenting with Tourette's syndrome or tic disorders during the course of the pandemic. Scarlett Moffatt is now on a mission to discover what is causing this medical enigma.

Scarlett Investigates... (1x60') will be an unexpectedly intimate journey for Scarlett, who was diagnosed with facial tics at the age of 12. Scarlett was plagued with tics for the first two years of her life due to Bell's Palsy.

Doctors used to only get four to six referrals per year for acute onsets in teenagers; now they get that many every week. Experts believe that worry is one of the main causes of the growth of tics, with three out of every four 13–19 year olds experiencing mental health concerns since the start of the pandemic.

Scarlett will meet some of people who have recently been diagnosed with the disorder, as well as scientists coping with this new problem, a group of Tourette's TikTok influencers, charity activists, and neurologists treating the surge of teens as she travels across the country.

Scarlett will leave no stone unturned as she finds herself in the heart of the dispute and investigates every possible cause - is it simply a symptom of the pandemic? Is there a role for social media? Is it possible that it's a case of mass hysteria?

Scarlett Moffatt said, "I am so grateful to Channel 4, Firecracker and all of our incredible contributors for allowing us to focus a lens on the topic of Tourette's and tics in teenagers. This show is something I personally feel incredibly passionate about as I suffered with facial tics when diagnosed with Bell's Palsy as a child and wish there was this kind of information and education available back then as it's something so many young people have to deal with."

Tuesday 4 January 2022

Interview with Sir David Attenborough and Michael Gunton (Executive Producer - The Green Planet)

Why did you decide to focus on plants for this series?

Michael: Well, one of the things that appeals to Sir David is doing something new, so with it being 25 years after Private Life Of Plants it did feel like it was about time! I also felt that people were starting to talk about plants, that there was a new zeitgeist coming back around [about plants]. But the key thing for us, to persuade David to do it, was going to be, how can we break new ground, visually and scientifically? What is the new technology we can bring to this series? What are the new stories?

Sir David: Yes, Private Life Of Plants exploited time-lapse, bringing plants to life by speeding up the action so that you could see them grow, blossoms open, and so on. But what could we do that was new?

In Private Life Of Plants we were stuck with all this very heavy, primitive equipment, but now we can take the cameras anywhere we like. So you now have the ability to go into a real forest, you can see a plant growing with its neighbours, fighting its neighbours or moving with its neighbours, or dying. And it's that that brings the thing to life, and which should make people say, "good lord, these extraordinary organisms are just like us" - in the sense that they live and die, that they fight, they have to learn to reproduce and all those sorts of things. But they do them so slowly, we've never seen it before. And that has a hypnotic appeal, in my view.

Michael: You can start to describe plant actions in the same sort of behavioural terms, with the fighting and deception, the sorts of things that we would normally attribute to animal behaviour. And so that also influenced how we approached the shooting of it. We wanted to reflect the approach we took in Planet Earth 2, where we got the cameras into the world of the animals and onto their shoulders while they were in the action. We would then allow the cameras to move around the environment, and as David was saying, capture the context and the relationships between the plants. And rather than just seeing it in one shot, you can see the world from various different plants' perspectives. It's a very dramatic, because this is a world we never see.

We're very plant blind because plants, to our own eyes, are very static, and they seem to do nothing. But when you use this technology, it's like parting a curtain to go into a parallel universe. And suddenly you see them [the plants] in the way they see their world. And that's when these sorts of perspectives really come to life.

Sir David: Plants fight one another, plants strangle one another. And you can actually see that happening [in real time]. That you can suddenly see a plant putting out a tentacle! Now you know it can't actually see, but you can see it trying to find its victim. And when it does finally touch the victim, it wraps around it quickly and strangles it. You know, it's pretty tough stuff.

How was it travelling the world for this series?

Sir David: In a sense, the series itself is slow growing, like plants. We started [filming] a long time ago, before Covid. And so I was dashing around interesting places, in California and so on, in a way that hasn't been possible for the last two years. So I appear in all these different parts of the world quite frequently, more than any other [series] for some time.

Michael: I think this series needed a guide. Somebody to take you on these journeys [in each episode] and allow you to go between our world and the plant world. And David acts as the kind of the translator between each world was a key reason for having him on location so much. But also there's nothing more fun than being on location and doing a little demonstration. So David would say, "watch this when this plant does this". It feels important and exciting, and makes it a lot more fun for the audience.

Did this feel like an important time to be making a new series about plants?

Sir David: Yes, the world has suddenly become plant conscious. There has been a revolution worldwide in attitudes towards the natural world in my lifetime. An awakening and an awareness of how important the natural world is to us all. An awareness that we would starve without plants, we wouldn't be able to breathe without plants. The world is green, it's an apt name [for the series]... and yet people's understanding about plants, except in a very kind of narrow way, has not kept up with that. I think this will bring it home.

The world depends on plants. It's a cliché now, every breath of air we take, and every mouthful of food we eat, depends upon plants. I also think that being shut up and confined to one's garden, if one is lucky enough to have a garden, and if not, to having plants sitting on a shelf, has changed people's perspective. And an awareness [has grown] of another world that exists to which we hardly ever pay attention to in its own right. Of course, we do gardening programmes and have done since the beginning of television. But this is not about gardening, this is about a parallel world, which exists alongside us, and which is the basis for our own lives, and for which we have paid scant attention over the years.

Michael: The plant world is an incredible life force. A walk in the woods, a walk in the park is actually salvation to the soul for so many people and the pandemic has accentuated that. People started to open their eyes to this world around us in a way that they haven't done before.

Anybody who takes a walk probably sees more plants than you see animals, so why do you think people have not been as engaged with plants as they been with animals?

Sir David: Because they apparently just sit there being a plant. You could either take them or leave them or you could dig them up, or throw them aside. They don't react, they don't resent it, they just die. We don't engage with plants enough.

Michael: Some of the discoveries we've revealed in the series do make you start to think about plants in a very different way. For example, that there's the 'microrhizal' network story that we've featured in one of our episodes that is truly out of science fiction. This idea [is] that all the trees in a forest are connected by fungal networks, so each of these trees are effectively communicating with each other. This is something that blows your mind, when you actually think about it. It's like going through the back of the wardrobe in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, into another world which you're suddenly seeing for the first time.

David, in your travels on the series you interacted with lots of plants. Are there any plants that really stuck in your mind?

Sir David: One of the really great, profoundly moving experiences, was to go to the giant sequoias in California, these enormous trees. It's not an accident that there's a cathedral-like feeling when you go amongst them. They are immense things, some of the tallest ones are enormous. But what this programme did was to use another of the inventions that you might think had very little to do with plants, technical inventions, that changed natural history photography in the past 10-20 years: drones. When you see the final sequence in the programmes and [the camera] suddenly rises above the tree tops. and you see these giants - it's a marvellous sequence.

Michael: It's the first time I've ever filmed there, and you cannot not be moved by them, they've been there for 3,000 years. You feel like they've been there since the beginning of time. You think nothing could ever go wrong in the world while these things are alive.

And you had a very scary encounter with a cactus didn't you?

Sir David: Yes, I mean, the cholla really is a physical danger. It has been very dense spines in rosettes, so they point in all directions. And if you just brush against it, the spines are like spicules of glass, I mean they are that sharp and they go into you and you really have trouble getting them out! So that is a really dangerous plant. The cholla is an active aggressor. I mean you feel you better stand back and you better watch out [for it].

Michael: One of the joys of going on location is thinking up horrible things to get David to do. So what we did, because it was so dangerous, was we got a Kevlar under-glove, and then on top of that a welding glove. So you can imagine that's about as good protection as you could possibly get. So David bravely put his hand inside this cholla cactus, as requested. And half way through it, these spikes still managed to get through those two bits of protection. And it's quite painful, isn't it?

Sir David: Yes it was!

Michael: What's more, the other thing that's so nasty and why all animals avoid it, is because not only does it puncture you, but it sort of acts like a trap. So if you put your hand into it you can't remove your fingers. And unfortunately you can find grisly signs of an animal that has got trapped by it!

In the water episode there's a big scene in the Pantanal (Brazil), how did you use time-lapse for this scene?

Sir David: Well, water lilies are extremely aggressive. And their battleground is the surface of the lake and the surface of the water, so it's a very narrow battle. The Giant Water Lily which produces leaves famously which can hold a small baby, has a bud that comes up loaded with prickles. And it comes up into the surface and starts expanding, with these spikes pushing everything else out of the way. And in the end the lake ends up as just solid Giant Water Lilies butting up against one another, with no room for anything else at all. It's one of the most empire building aggressive plants there is. Everybody says how wonderful it is, but nobody says how murderous it is.

And the final episode of the series is about the relationships between people and plants, can you tell us about that episode?

Michael: Yes, so that episode is about the relationship between humanity and plants. And that's both in terms of how we live alongside them, and also how our lives have followed a very tightly bound path with them since the start of the agricultural revolution.

The episode begins with some of the most successful plants in our world, what we rather disparagingly call weeds. Plants that are very good living alongside us. But occasionally the characteristics that make weed plants so successful can be used to mutual benefit. One of the stories we feature in the episode follows a particular group of people in India who live in very difficult environments, with very steep sided ravines of rocks, and torrents of rivers which are almost impossible to cross. So if you try to build a traditional bridge out of steel or concrete, they just get washed away. So this community use the incredible speed and strength and growth of a fig tree to train the roots to create these bridges. So over time, all these roots connect up and grow and grow and grow and produce these absolutely bombproof beautiful living bridges. And they'll live for hundreds of years, allowing the local people to cross these rivers. They become very symbolic for that particular community, so there's quite a spiritual connection.

What would you hope that the audience will take away from watching the series?

Sir David: That there is a parallel world on which we depend, and which up to now we have largely ignored, if I speak on behalf of urbanised man. Over half the population of the world according to the United Nations is urbanised, live in cities, only seeing cultivated plants and never seeing a wild community of plants. But that wild community is there, outside urban circumstances normally, and we depend upon it. And we better jolly well care for it.

Michael: One of the great joys of being a filmmaker is showing people things they've never seen before, and opening their eyes to things that could not see with their own eyes. And this does it in a way that perhaps no other series I've ever worked on has done, because you literally can't see these things other than on camera.

But I think also the importance and vulnerability of plants, they are unsung heroes. Particularly as we focus on the climate emergency, that plants are our greatest allies. They do such a lot of work for us, they are great carbon capturing machines. And what's great about them is they'll do it without us even having to try. Just leave them alone, and they'll do the job for us.

So there's various technologies being developed in this series, can you tell us about some of these?

Michael: One of the things that was absolutely critical for this series was to find some technology that allowed us to see from that particular plants perspective in a way that we hadn't been able to do before. And that involves time-lapse, because they live in this different time frame. And so that required a particular series of newly developed robotic cameras, which we were able to control in various ways.

So we used a combination of brilliant engineers, optical experts and computing whiz kids to come up with this technology. And it's all in one camera, called the Triffid. You can actually control this in various ways, including with a little game controller which I handed to David (laughs). And I thought to myself, he's never going to control it, but then a couple of minutes later he had it up, down, across and back up again. And then it did get a bit out of control and we had to get him to hand it back!

But that piece of technology allowed us to do something with a story that's never really been shown properly. And that's with leaf cutter ants and the partnership they have in the rainforest with plants. Leafcutter ants, which we see running around collecting leaves, effectively harvesting them, are being driven by a massive fungus which lives underground. And the ants are effectively the agents for that fungus, the fungus is the thing that feeds on the leaves. The fungus that digests the leaves gives the ants a reward of little tiny mini mushrooms.

So we wanted to show the scale of this by showing the whole route of the army of a leaf cutter ants trail From where it was collecting the leaves, all the way down into this chasm where this fungus was operating. So the triffid uses a tracking shot, that starts on the leaves and goes all the way along the trunks, down into the fungus. So that shot to your eyes is in real time, but in the shot all the ants are moving in time lapse. And that's one of the things that I think has been a breakthrough for this series, that the camera can move in our time. But within the shot, it's all moving in time lapse. And that is a quite an unusual perspective.

The Unusual Suspects - Coming to Acorn TV on January 31st

 


The Unusual Suspects is an action-packed crime caper about a gang of five ladies from all walks of life who are thrown together in the most unlikely of circumstances to plan an ambitious heist in Sydney's wealthy Eastern suburbs. Sara Beasley, a wealthy businesswoman, is played by Miranda Otto (Lord of the Rings, The Thin Red Line), with Aina Dumalao (Ballers, MacGyver) as her nanny and Michelle Vergara Moore (Condor, The Time of Our Lives) as Roxanne Waters, a self-made socialite. When an outrageously valuable piece of Roxanne's jewellery is stolen, the three ladies band together with Roxanne's nanny, Amy, and retired lawyer Birdie to devise a scheme to recover the necklace.

A fresh, female-led heist comedy and four-part miniseries that shows how the dynamite power of female friendship truly transcends cultural and social barriers.

Monday, 31st January 2022
THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS
UK PREMIERE
STREAMING EXCLUSIVE

Under the Vines - Preview and Trailer


Raise a drink to the premiere of a brilliant new drama. Under the Vines is a new, engaging sitcom with caustic wit and soft undertones. The show premieres exclusively on Acorn TV in the United Kingdom. The first two parts of the six-part series will air on January 10th, with subsequent episodes airing on Mondays.

Charles Edwards (The Crown, The Terror, Downton Abbey) and Rebecca Gibney (Wanted, Packed to the Rafters, The Flying Doctors) feature as two incongruous city slickers who inherit a failing winery in rural New Zealand. Daisy Munroe (Gibney), a Sydney socialite, travels to Peak View, New Zealand, to see her recently deceased stepfather's winery, which she plans to sell. She had no idea that the vineyard has a co-owner, Louis Oakley (Edwards), a surly UK-born lawyer who likewise travels to the wine area to avoid a series of unpleasant events in his life. Despite having never worked a day in their lives and despising each other, the two must make Oakley Winery a success so they can sell it, break up, and move on.

The ensemble cast includes Dean O’Gorman (One Lane Bridge), Sara Wiseman (A Place to Call Home), John Bach (Janet King), Matt Whelan (The Sounds), Simon Mead (Nothing Trivial), Sarah Peirse (Poor Boy) and Cohen Holloway (Top of the Lake).

Monday, 10th January 2022
UNDER THE VINES – EPISODES 1 & 2
ACORN TV ORIGINAL UK PREMIERE
STREAMING EXCLUSIVE
Two episodes per week follow on subsequent Mondays

Monday 3 January 2022

Competition: Win Van Helsing: Season 5 on DVD


Van Helsing: Season 5 DVD  - Released from 10th January

And to celebrate we have a great competition for you and 2 copies on DVD to give away.

Synopsis: 
Van Helsing has become one of the most exciting and entertaining fantasy-horror shows of recent times, combining brutal action with compelling storytelling and memorable characters. Inspired by the Helsing graphic novel series, the show has gone on to earn a loyal fan following worldwide.

Following an event referred to as “The Rising”, vampires now dominate the world. Vanessa Van Helsing (Kelly Overton, True Blood, Legends), the great-great-great-grand daughter of vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing, is resurrected to lead the surviving humans in their struggle against the vampires.

Van Helsing The Complete Collection features all 65 episodes from every season, including the eagerly awaited fifth and final season. 

Dazzler Media presents Van Helsing: The Final Season on Blu-ray, DVD & Download-to-Own from 10th January

Pre-Order from Amazon at https://amzn.to/3eMMIUw

Van Helsing: The Complete Collection is also available on Blu-ray & DVD from 10th January

Pre-Order from Amazon at https://amzn.to/3EQ1iF2


For your chance to win just answer the question below.

COMPETITION CLOSED

Terms and conditions
1. Closing date 17-01-22
2. No alternative prize is available
3. When the competition ends as indicated on this page, any and all entries received after this point will not count and emails blacklisted due to not checking this page first.
4. Winners will be chosen randomly and will be informed via email.
5. Entries that come directly from other websites will not be accepted.


Saturday 1 January 2022

Peacemaker - New Trailer - Starring John Cena


Peacemaker is an upcoming American television series created by James Gunn for the streaming service HBO Max, based on the DC Comics character Peacemaker. It is the first DC Extended Universe (DCEU) television series, a spin-off from the 2021 film The Suicide Squad. Set after the film, the series explores the origins of Peacemaker who believes in achieving peace at any cost. It is produced by Troll Court Entertainment and The Safran Company in association with Warner Bros. Television, with Gunn serving as showrunner.

John Cena stars as the title character, reprising his role from The Suicide Squad, with Steve Agee, Danielle Brooks, Robert Patrick, Jennifer Holland, Freddie Stroma, and Chukwudi Iwuji also starring. Gunn wrote all eight episodes of the series while completing work on The Suicide Squad during the COVID-19 pandemic, before HBO Max officially ordered Peacemaker straight-to-series in September 2020. Filming took place in Vancouver, Canada, from January to July 2021, with Gunn directing five of the episodes. Peacemaker is set to premiere on January 13, 2022.