The Wrong Door
Premiere date: Wednesday, 4 March 2009 at 20h00
The Wrong Door is a new sketch show set in a parallel universe; a world governed by the laws of comedy, not nature, where special effects are part of everyday life.
In this world, herds of space hoppers and shopping trolleys roam the countryside, robots play tennis, mini-bars come with a helpful mini-barman, and mp3 players generate 3D pop star holograms.
Superheroes, wizards, dinosaurs and monsters casually go about their business amongst the daily irritations of explosions, disasters, battles, chases and driving lessons.
The series features celebrity cameo appearances including Brian Blessed, Matt Berry, Neil Fox and Rasmus Hardiker.
Life On Mars 2Premiere date: Thursday, 5 March 2009 at 20h30
Life On Mars returns for its second season.
A synposis in case you missed the first season: Since DCI Sam Tyler awoke, dazed from a car accident, things have felt a little off kilter. A few decades off kilter. No rational explanation is forthcoming. Is he dreaming? Is he in a coma? Maybe he's just lost a few of his marbles.
A passionate, meticulous, modern policeman, Sam still conflicts with his chain-smoking, bigoted, and dangerously dodgy colleagues at every turn, and none more so than his “Guv”, DCI Gene Hunt. But Sam continues use his knowledge and policing techniques of the future to solve crimes in 1973, often much to DCI Hunt’s chagrin.
As he does so, each case offers some key to the mystery of Sam's life. Gradually the messages appear to be linking up to form a meaning. However, the meaning is something that chills Sam to the core, and he now has to consider whether the retro life he inhabits has any real foundations. And if so, how on Earth is Sam Tyler going to get back home? And where or when would that home be?
The State WithinPremiere date: Monday 9 March 2009 at 20h30
A BBC/BBC America co-production, The State Within is a six-part political thriller starring Jason Isaacs, Sharon Gless, Ben Daniels and Neil Pearson.
When a British plane crashes in America, and it is discovered to be the work of a British-born suicide bomber, the special relationship between the two countries is threatened.
The UK’s Ambassador to Washington, Sir Mark Brydon (Isaacs) has to work hard to maintain a show of solidarity, but behind the scenes there are tensions as emergency legislation is introduced.
Thrown into the mix are a mysterious British prisoner on Florida’s death row, a threatened coup of a central Asian country, an American Secretary of Defense on the warpath, and complicated private lives.
As the body count rises and the betrayals unfold, the true heroes and villains are revealed.
Hustle 3Premiere date: Tuesday, 10 March 2009 at 20h30
This third season of Hustle finds the long-con experts strapped for cash after a spell in Las Vegas, and confronted by some risky situations.
Mickey poses as a hip-hop record producer when the gang pit themselves against a notorious mark with a bratty son who thinks he's the next Eminem. But when the con goes wrong, will the gang end up paying the price?
When James Whittaker Wright III, an American con artist, joins up with the gang to seek revenge on some unscrupulous city bankers - will they be able to pull off the con before Wright pulls a double-cross on them?
In the high heat of summer, it suddenly looks like it might be the last score for some of the crew. When Danny and Mickey take up a challenge to determine the group's leadership, they end up engaged in a race against the clock and each other.
Never BetterPremiere date: Monday, 23 March 2009 at 20h00
Never Better is a comedy series about one man's struggle to cope with it all. An Alcoholics Anonymous attendee with a bad attitude, Keith (Stephen Mangan) is the wrong person trying to do the right thing.
He’s a recovering alcoholic, but he doesn’t realise that alcohol is the least of his problems. While he manages to stay on the wagon, his sobriety means crisis and destruction for everyone else.
At his AA group, he creates chaos endangering the recovery of his fellow twelve-steppers. At home, his wife and two children have to cope with Keith’s new attentiveness and misfiring determination to be a good dad and husband. From moments of gloriously uncomfortable, quintessentially British humour to hilarious, laugh-out-loud catastrophes, Never Better is about a recovery that never progresses, and family time that never fails to go wrong.
Skins 2Premiere date: Wednesday, 25 March 2009 at 20h30
Skins 2 returns for it's second season, as does Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel, who plays Anwar.
The series centres round super-cool Tony, played by Nicholas Hoult (About A Boy), and his buddies - Sid, girlfriend Michelle, anorexic Cassie, drug popping Chris, musician Jal, gay dancer Maxxie and Anwar (Patel), who struggles between his Asian heritage and Western ways.
It was thanks to his performance in Skins, that Patel got his role in Slumdog.
Director Danny Boyle’s daughter was watching Skins when her father returned from a round of casting in India. When Boyle told her he could not find a male lead, she pointed to Patel’s character on the box. Patel was then told by a casting agent that the director wanted him to come in for an audition. And the rest as they say is history…
Skins 1 one ended with a cliffhanger after Tony was hit by a bus and left for dead. What kind of state will he be in in Season 2?
The first episode starts six months after the end of Season 1 and mainly concentrates on Maxxie, played by Mitch Hewer - how he deals with being gay on a rough council estate and his quest to be a professional dancer.
Lead BalloonPremiere date: Tuesday, 31 March 2009 at 20h00
Rick Spleen is a disillusioned stand-up comedian and writer. Hosting corporate events, appearing on daytime chat shows and fronting cheap DVDs was not what he dreamed of as a young man. All this plus he's stuck with a lousy stage name.
Whether he is being accused of putting on weight, suspected of being gay or worried about accidentally poisoning another performer, Rick combines a mass of neuroses and petty grievances with a terrible propensity for lying. It is not a recipe for success.
Along for the ride is his quick-witted American co-writer Marty, his unflappable partner Mel and his feckless daughter Sam. And then there’s Magda, Rick’s Eastern European daily help who combines a surly and depressive nature with a unique ability to wind Rick up, pasty faced teenager Ben who is Sam’s boyfriend and the least motivated human being on the planet, and local wholefood café owner Michael, who appears to be completely unhinged.