ASHES TO ASHES (SCRIBBS TO...)

The personal and professional lives of Detective Constable Rachel Bailey and Detective Constable Janet Scott, members of Manchester Metropolitan Police’s Major Incident Team. They investigate the apparent suicide of a young Turkish woman.

Co-created and written by Sally Wainwright (Unforgiven), Scott & Bailey is based on an idea by actresses Suranne Jones and Sally Lindsay. And this new ITV1 crime drama from Red Production Company is co-created by Diane Taylor, a retired DI from the Greater Manchester Police Force’s Major Incident Team.

The cast is an absolute dream: Jones herself, who entered TV History three weeks ago as "Sexy" in Doctor Who, plays impulsive DC Bailey. Lesley Sharp (The Shadow Line) is the more thoughtful DC Scott. There's also Amelia Bullmore, Nicholas Gleaves (Survivors) and the ubiquitous Rupert Graves (Sherlock) as Bailey's duplicitous lawyer boyfriend Nick Savage.

The premiere episode is a total waste of that amount of talents, with enough cliché material for a Comic Relief parody and an amazing lack of on-screen energy. Scott & Bailey feels like you're already watching its own US remake - except there was Cagney & Lacey before. According to the excellent TV Scoops Twitter feed, Scott & Bailey started with a huge 8.2 million viewers, the most watched first episode of any new drama in 5 years. Maybe BGT viewers couldn't find their buzzers.

P.S. Nick, you can't dump "Sexy". Period.

http://www.itv.com/presscentre/presspacks/scottandbaileypresspack/default.html
http://www.cultbox.co.uk/reviews/episodes/1019-scott-a-bailey-episode-1-review
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/may/29/scott-bailey-tv-review
http://twitter.com/#!/tvscoops

LAW AND ORDER AND LAW AND ORDER AND...

[20.00 - French Time] ITV today announced three new drama commissions for 2011: Injustice, Scott and Bailey and The Jury.

- Injustice stars James Purefoy (The Philanthropist, Diamonds) as a criminal barrister who is recovering from a traumatic series of events that have shaken his belief in the legal system. This five-part series is screenwriter and author Anthony Horowitz’s new project for ITV1 following the huge critical and rating success of the superb event drama Collision. Injustice will be produced by Injustice Films Limited.

Given the talent of Horowitz, the man behind Foyle's War, Crime Traveller or the Alex Rider novels, the project is a most welcome announcement. Not to mention the fact that Collision was one of the best things aired by ITV last year.

- Scott and Bailey (6 X 60-minute) will star Suranne Jones and Lesley Sharp in the title roles of two homicide detectives from Greater Manchester Police’s Major Incident Team. The series is written by Sally Wainwright (Unforgiven), who has co-created it with ex-Detective Inspector Diane Taylor.

Scott and Bailey is produced by Red Production Company. Let's hope that this is not another Murder in Suburbia.

- Written by BAFTA winner and Oscar nominated Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon, The Queen), The Jury focuses on the everyday people who find themselves at the centre of one of the most controversial criminal re-trials of their time. Morgan created the original namesake five-part miniseries produced by ITV Studios in 2002.

The Jury (5 X 60-minute) will be produced once again by ITV Studios and it sounds like an answer from ITV to Criminal Justice, Peter Moffat's creation for the BBC (even if the first Criminal Justice is from 2008).

http://www.itv.com/presscentre/pressreleases/programmepressreleases/itvannouncesthreenewdramacommissionsfor2011/default.html
http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/people/interviews/anthony-horowitz-outspoken-star-of-tv-drama/5017441.article