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Looking ahead to 2010: What to Look Forward To

Looking ahead to 2010: What to Look Forward To

We cast our eye on the year ahead and point out a few milestones and shows to look forward to next year. Highlights include a new full season of Doctor Who with Matt Smith stepping into the Time-Lords shoes, the 4th seasons of Dante’s Cove and Skins and plenty more beside.

Doctor Who

How did we cope this year without a full proper season of Doctor Who and Torchwood? Instead of 13 episodes of both brilliant shows we had several one-off specials of Who and a five-part ‘mini-series’ for Torchwood. But 2010 will see Doctor Who return for a full series with a brand new look. Matt Smith will be joined by Karen Gillan as the Doctor’s companion Amy Pond complete with a brand new logo, new look Tardis and a complete overhaul as Steven Moffat stamps his mark on the iconic Science Fiction series…we can’t wait! From the little that’s been revealed about the new series it sounds like it’s going to be awesome and although David Tennant will be an extremely hard act to follow we have every confidence that Matt Smith will make the part his own. Now if only the BBC could get its act together and commission a FULL season of Torchwood!


Dante’s Cove

Our favourite guilty pleasure and we aren’t afraid to admit it and to be honest you couldn’t really have missed that fact. Yes folks sometime in 2010 Dante’s Cove will make a much welcome reappearance after far too long off-air. Okay so we won’t actually get to see it on TV, we’ll have to wait for the DVD to be released over here, but we’re still excited. We have no idea what’s in store for the witches and warlocks of Dante’s Cove in its third year, we have no idea who’s back and who’s been recast but we’re still damn excited. In a world full of doom and gloom the guilty pleasure factor of this show is a welcome bit of light relief…and what other show could offer us Tracy Scoggins and Thea Gill having a bitch-fight??? Fans would welcome the return of Nadine Heimann as Van but as long as the series continues to mix topless hunky men with hammy acting and camp storylines we’ll be happy and the sooner Dante’s Cove season four lands on DVD the better as far as we’re concerned.


Skins     

The teen-drama returns shortly for its fourth season although should that be season two with its new generation of teens? We already know that come the end of the season this lot will also be dumped and should there be a year five they’ll be a new lot of angst ridden, horny, pot-smoking teenagers ready to step into the lime-light. Until then we’ll have to endure the love triangle between Freddie, Effy and Cooke a little longer but on the brighter side we’ll have the relationship between Naomi and Emily to keep us interested and a guest appearance by Will Young at some point too! We are also promised several new characters that we are sure will shake things up a little…now if Tony and say Maxxie could also reappear for an episode that would make us very happy indeed. 


 

Shameless

The seventh series of the brilliant drama starts in January and although over the seasons we’ve lost some of the better characters [Kev and Veronica for instance] the series is still highly enjoyable and watchable. Jam and Jerusalem actress Pauline McLynn is amongst the new additions to the cast this year and her character will reportedly enjoy a romance with Frank Gallagher! Meanwhile the marriage between Mimi and Paddy seems to be over as Mimi moves into the Jockey and Debbie has, according to tabloid reports, joined the army! Shameless’ blend of humour and heart-warming drama is what makes the show such a joy to watch and we’re sure the seventh season will continue this.

 


 

Merlin

The first and second seasons of the BBC fantasy series were fantastic so let’s hope the third series can continue its good performance. Now let’s remember that Robin Hood fell at the end of its third year so Merlin next year could face a tricky season. The critics may be watching it to see if it loses it’s magic and ends up on the scrap heap like Robin Hood. Somehow we don’t think that’s likely especially as the producers have already stated they have a five year arc for the series already planned. What can we expect from the third year? Well more brilliant guest stars along the lines of Emilia Fox and Sarah Parish, more building on the show’s mythology and drawing from the legends of Arthur and Merlin. We would also like to see the drama stick to just one timeslot instead of constantly moving around the schedules at the whim of the BBC.


Survivors

We were expecting the return of Survivors this year but the BBC has delayed it until early next year so it now becomes something to look forward to for 2010. Unfortunately there are once again just six episodes on the second season which is painfully short to explore the drama possibilities of life in a post apocalyptic world. The original series of Survivors each ran to 13 episodes so it’s disappointing this modern retelling of the story also can’t run for similar lengths. Anyway season two of Survivors will see the action shift to Birmingham and we’ll learn more about the conspiracy involving those scientists. We’ll also meet more survivors of the plague and most of them will probably be the unsavoury sort.


Jonathan Creek

Alan Davies reprises his role of Jonathan Creek once more for an Easter Special. Jonathan Creek was last seen in a New Year special at the start of 2009 which was very well received by television audiences so unsurprisingly the BBC wanted more – fans perhaps would rather see a full new series than one-off specials. The episode is titled The Judas Tree and we expect Sheridan Smith will also return for the special but apart from that not a lot else is known. However, it’ll probably be an interesting and well written piece that will puzzle us until the big reveal!


Whitechapel 2

 

We shall be honest here and say that we didn’t have high expectations from Whitechapel when we sat down to watch it earlier this year. While we are slightly interested in the whole Jack the Ripper saga its more everyday curiosity really which millions of people across the country share. Sure we’ve seen a few drama’s/films about it and even the episodes of Star Trek and Babylon 5 which touch upon the subject but to be honest we’ve never been too impressed with any Ripper related drama. So we sat down to Whitechapel expecting the same old rehash stuff and boy were we pleasantly surprised. A tense drama with a dark atmosphere written by writers who clearly knew their stuff and acted well by those involved – even if in places it was a bit clichéd. The problem Whitechapel now faces is we’ll be sitting down to the sequel with high expectations so it will have to deliver to avoid disappointing us. This time around the series will focus on the Kray twins rather than the infamous Victorian serial killer but it’s still a subject that fascinates many so it should be interesting to watch.


The Tudors

The fourth and final season of The Tudors will cover the final two wives of Henry VIII [Jonathan Rhys Meyers] and his dying days as King of England. The series has so far covered the downfall of Catherine of Aragon [Maria Doyle Kennedy], the beheading of Anne Boleyn [Natalie Dormer], Cardinal Wolsey [Sam Neil], Thomas More [Jeremy Northam] and Thomas Cromwell [James Frain] all fall foul of the King and died as a result. In the final series we’ll see his relationship with Catherine Howard and another Queen losing their head followed by his marriage to Catherine Parr – his final wife and along with Anne of Cleves the only ones to outlive the tyrant King. We’ve loved The Tudors blend of historical drama mixed with Dallas/Dynasty style plotting, betrayal and politics and we’ll be sad to see it end. We do hope however, that there’s room in the fourth season for the return of Peter O’Toole as the Pope whose brief appearances in the second season were a delight to watch. Perhaps also the producers of The Tudors will consider a spin-off which follows Mary’s [Sarah Bolger] reign – okay so it’ll have to skip over Edward’s reign but the character of Mary, dubbed Bloody Mary by some historians, is a fascinating one which has hardly been touched upon. Instead dramas tend to focus on her father and sister, Elizabeth, rather than her short-lived but bloody, dark and turbulent reign. 

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