No Shortage of TV Entertainment Ahead

The Killing Times is out with its mammoth survey of TV crime dramas slated for release during the coming year. Broadcast dates are generally intended for audiences in Great Britain, but many of the shows mentioned will later appear on U.S. small screens.

I’m looking forward especially to watching After the Flood, starring Sophie Rundle and Philip Glenister; Ruth, in which Lucy Boynton portrays the last woman to be hanged in the UK; the four-part, fact-based David-and-Goliath story Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office, featuring Toby Jones; Jodi Foster’s True Detective: Night Country, set to premiere on January 14 on HBO; and Manhunt, “the astonishing story of the hunt for John Wilkes Booth in the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination,” based on James L. Swanson’s book of that same title and scheduled to debut on Apple+ come March 15.

(Left) Sophie Rundle in After the Flood.

Also highlighted: BBC One’s Return to Paradise, an Australia-based Death in Paradise spin-off series about which I had heard rather little before now. Here’s The Killing Times’ synopsis of that forthcoming program:

Set in the idyllic, beachside hamlet of Dolphin Cove, Return to Paradise is six gripping, twisting and fiendishly clever murder mysteries—all against the spectacular backdrop of the Australian coastal landscape.

Australian ex-pat Mackenzie Clarke is the seemingly golden girl of the London Metropolitan police force—with an intuitive approach to detective work, she has built a reputation for being able to crack the most impossible of cases. However, she’s suddenly forced to up sticks and move back to her childhood home of Dolphin Cove, a beautiful, coastal paradise … and Mackenzie’s worst nightmare. Having escaped her hometown at the earliest opportunity six years ago, Mack vowed she’d never come back, leaving a lot of unfinished business and unanswered questions. On her return, she’s still no fan of the town, and the people of Dolphin Cove are certainly no fans of hers. In fact, everyone would prefer her not to be there, including Mackenzie herself. But when a murder takes place in Dolphin Cove, Mack can’t help but put her inspired detective brilliance to good use and determines, despite her reservations, that she needs to make the best of it, including tying up the loose ends with the man she left at the altar six years ago.

This show was created and is being executive-produced by Peter Mattessi, James Hall, and Robert Thorogood, the last of whom was behind both the original Paradise series and its other spin-off, Beyond Paradise. The fact that no Return to Paradise cast members are named may help explain why no premiere date has yet been declared.