Robin Hood Returning To BBC America

No idea how old this news is, but it's brand new to us so we thought we'd pass it on. BBC America has finally set a return date for Robin Hood. We've been wondering when they'd get around to it.

The third season of the show aired throughout the spring and early summer in the UK with the last final episode airing June 27th. Word came down just this month that BBC has canceled the show.

The third and final season of Robin Hood debuts Saturday September 12th on BBC America.

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Torchwood Gets A Fourth Season

Not much surprise, really. Torchwood has become one of the most talked about shows this summer the world over. It was the number one show five nights in a row in the UK and critics and fans are falling all over themselves to praise it. DVR Life is one of them, too: the freaking show is brilliant and has set itself up as quite possibly one of the greatest sci-fi television shows of all time, in our humble opinion.

So Comic Mix got a hot exclusive when someone from the BBC America ranks let slip that season 4 is in the works.

***SPOILERS*** If you haven't watched the end of season 2 or Children of Earth yet, beware.

Season 2 ended with Owen & Toshiko being killed off and poor Ianto only made it to day four of Children of Earth. Captain Jack took off for the stars and Gwen is pregnant. Not much of an elite supernatural hunting force these days, are they?

Who knows where the show will go from here. With Russell T. Davies at the helm, no matter where they end up, I'm sure it'll be good.

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Skins Finally Returning To BBC America

Rejoice teen-soap lovers as BBC America has finally lined up gritty brit-hit Skins to return for a third season. The series is perhaps the most realistic teen-soap to ever hit small screens, following a group of Bristol teens through their junior and senior years before heading off to college or real life.

The show picked up tons of flack from critics during it's first season, many claiming that the stories were unrealistic and overly dramatic...DVR Life would just like to point out that either none of those critics grew up in the early to mid-90's or we and our friends at Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando, Fl. knew how to live exceptionally well because we laugh our asses off while watching Skins, partly because we truly feel "we've been there, done that and love seeing it portrayed on TV all these years later."

For those already initiated to the debauchery of Skins, be forewarned: series 3 features nearly an entire new cast. The only returning face will be Effy, Tony's younger sister who merely put in a few occasional appearances in the first two seasons.

While we came to love Tony, Sid, Anwar, Cassie, Maxxie and all the other generation 1 characters, the producers came up with the rather novel idea of starting all over again with a new line-up of juniors: generation 2. We're still not sure were DVR Life lands on this issue but you have to figure One Tree Hill already pulled the jumping past college thing and The OC had the kinda ridiculous idea of having their characters suddenly change life paths and skip college.

It's a bit refreshing to see writers come up with a new idea.

DVR Life is just happy to have the show back. After series 2 ended on a few very depressing notes last January we were promised a springtime return which never came. BBC America is pretty good at that kinda thing (where's Robin Hood?!?) so we were elated at this announcement.

Skins series 3 premieres Thursday August 6th on BBC America.

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Preview: Survivors

As I posted earlier, BBC America has some good shows returning this summer and some new ones debuting. Of them all, the one I'm looking forward to the most is Survivors.

The show revolves around the premise that 99% of the human population is killed off by a virus and a small group of people who survive. It's basically the show I've always wanted to create.

BBC America hasn't announced a premiere date yet. Their website simply lists the show on the 'Coming Soon" page. The show, of course, aired on the real BBC and is already over, but it makes note that they're at work on a new series.

Series Overview


Actors Talk About Their Characters


Episode 1 Preview (Sound & Video Out of Sync)

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Doctor Who Returns and Being Human Debuts on BBC America

The BBC America summer schedule is finally coming out. The network is notorious for not bothering to release scheduling and programming plans so it's pretty good to get some news.

First off, the beloved sci-fi series Doctor Who will be returning. The network will broadcast the five Doctor Who specials, starting with the xmas one, on June 27th and the second slated for July. The others have yet to be scheduled.

Premiering on BBCA is a new six part series called Being Human. Not expecting the series to air here in the states I took a different route in acquiring the show, so we'll just say I've previewed it for you.

The show has a rather great premise: A werefolf, a vampire and a ghost walk into a bar...just kidding. A werewolf, a vampire and a ghost share a house together. All three battle their nature, the vampire trying not to convert humans, the werewolf trying to manage his monthly "outings" without hurting anyone or anything and the ghost girl battling loneliness and trying her best to be seen and heard.

It has a great mix of graphic humor and horror and I wholly suggest tuning in for it's July 25th premiere. You can see whole mess of previews and promos on here.

Also coming sometime, though no dates have been announced yet, are Survivors, a post apocalypse series following a group of people after a virus wipes out 99% of the world's population, and The In-Betweeners, a soapy show about the awkwardness of teen life.

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Warner Purchases Screen Rights To Primeval

Primeval, which I previously posted about here, will be returning to BBC America this Saturday for it's third season and today Variety announced that Warner Bros has picked up the movie rights to the ITV hit.

No word on anything yet, of course, as it's waaaaay too early, except that one of the producers was a script writer of Angel and Demons who's also producing a prequel, with Will Smith, of I Am Legend. At this point, other than the fact that the deal is worth a high six figures, who's to say the movie will even be made. Picking up screen rights is not a guarantee but I would hope that the same actors and writers would be involved. The show is high-budgeted and great for TV, though not quite big screen quality, so lot's of work would have to be done on it.

According to the Variety article, producers of the show are also shopping the idea of a duplicate series that takes place somewhere other than the UK, though seeing as the show already airs pretty much worldwide, I can't quite see that working out too well. I know that's what I also said years ago about The Office, but once the basic premise is out how much can you really change?

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BBC America Bring Primeval Back

Received an email the other day from BBC America touting the return of Primeval. The return places the show in it's previous Saturday 9pm slot. I must say I was pretty happy to hear(read) the news.

Season 3 premieres May 16th.

If you haven't watched the show yet I'd suggest you get caught up in time. The first two seasons were fantastic and I suspect the third could only be better.

The premise for the series is really quite fun: Mysterious time anomalies, basically time portals, begin appearing throughout Britain with disastrous results. Humans sometimes stumble into these portals and past creatures, dinosaurs and the like, and future species, also make their way out. A team of paleontologists and scientists, lead by paleontologist Dr. Nick Cutter, is tasked with trying to figure out if there is a pattern to them in order to predict when and where they will open up.

Each episode brings new suspense, never knowing what's going to come out of the portal or how to get it back in. The paleontologists are often in awe, as well, while witnessing the sometimes friendly, though usually vicious creatures they've spent their lives studying in books, never believing they'd ever have a chance to witness a real life T-Rex or 10 ton sandworm.

There's also small bits of crushes and heartbreaks and such, but never enough to drown out the main story line.

The cast is lead by Douglas Henshaw who portrays Dr. Nick Cutter, a paleontologist with a painful past who's awestruck with the wonders of the anomalies while also very aware of the dangers. His team, a group of pretty young things, consists of Andrew-Lee Potts as Connor, a former student of Dr. Cutter known for being a bit quirky and not always on top of things, a cutesy zoo keeper, Abby, specializing in amphibians played by Hannah Spearitt and Stephen Hart, a former protege of Dr. Cutter. The two share a strained relationship due to his part in Cutter's painful past. Hart sacrificed himself in the finale of season 2, though I don't think we've seen the last of him.

Ben Miller, who I've come to enjoy via Moving Wallpaper joined the cast in season two as the head of government operations, which is a treat. He doesn't really care why or how the anomalies are happening, nor for what knowledge can be gained from them - he just wants to stop them. There's also Lucy Brown who played two characters: Claudia Brown and Jenny Lewis (an ode to Rilo Kiley, perhaps?). The series began with Claudia Brown acting as the government liaison and crush interest for Dr. Cutter but disappeared due to a timeline change caused by an anomaly. She re-appeared as Jenny Lewis, a PR officer hired by the government to smooth over the press and keep the anomalies a secret. This was really confusing for Cutter as he was the only one to remember Claudia Brown.

There's also various bad guys and conspirators but the main jerkface is Helen Cutter, steely played by Juliet Aubrey. She's Cutter's paleontologist ex-wife who disappeared years ago while working. Turns out she had discovered an anomaly and decided to pull a Doc Brown, living in the past. She's jumps in and out of the anomalies, causing grief and trouble for pretty much everyone while also giving Cutter one hell of a rough time.

BBC America was added to my naughty list this year for not bringing back a number of shows I've enjoyed. It would be one thing if the shows were canceled but they're still airing in Britain, BBC America has just stopped importing them...I think. Getting news out of BBC America is really hard. They keep things close to the vest and you just never know what's coming back until a month or so before it reappears, so I was happy and a bit surprised to hear Primeval would return.

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