TV Critics Tour: BBC America Preps Eclectic Fall Lineup

New Programs Includes Award-Winning Political Thriller

By Linda Haugsted -- Multichannel News, 7/8/2008 5:03:00 PM

Beverly Hills, Calif.—BBC America will debut a BAFTA award-winning thriller focusing on British Muslim siblings moving in different political directions as part of its programming slate this fall.

The thriller will be cablecast in two-hour episodes over consecutive nights in November. The exact broadcast dates have yet to be determined.

The show, Britz, is “not the story of September 11 bombers or the July 7 (English) bombers,” according to writer-director Peter Kosminsky (pictured), but a fictional tale of two second-generation Muslims and their different reactions to growing up in Britain today.

During a presentation to television critics in Beverly Hills, network officials also said they will add to the Saturday science fiction block on Aug. 9 with a new series, Primeval, an entertainment series from the creator of Discovery Channel's Walking With Dinosaurs. The series features some of the computer generated creatures familiar from that special. The series follows an evolutionary zoologist as he discovers living prehistoric creatures in modern times.

Another British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) winner, Gavin & Stacey, will premier on Aug. 26. The comedy, starring writers Ruth Jones and James Corden, follows the courtship of an “ordinary boy from England and an ordinary girl from Wales” whose quirky family and friends provide the comedy.

Like another British series, The Office, this show will be remade for American audiences by NBC.

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