2015 is fast approaching, but what’s in store to keep our screens flickering and our minds off the drudgery of everyday life?

 

Line of Duty

Good news for LoD fans: Jed Mercurio’s hard-hitting police drama will return to BBC Two in 2015, and then in 2016 for a confirmed fourth season.

No news yet on casting, but according to drama commissioner Ben Stephenson, Jed Mercurio has ‘outdone himself’ with his script for Season 3’s opener. High praise indeed.

 

The Living and the Dead

In a year packed with supernatural dramas, BBC One’s six-part The Living and the Dead stands out for having Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes co-creators Ashley Pharoah and Matthew Graham behind it.

Set in Somerset in 1888, it sees gentleman farmer Nathan Appleby attempting to prove the existence of the afterlife, and dealing with the disturbing consequences.

 

Luther

Proving that you can’t keep a good man, or an occasionally-morally-grey man, down, Luther will return to BBC One for two new 60-minute episodes.

It’s not been mentioned if Ruth Wilson will also be in it, although Idris Elba said earlier this year, ‘If we come back, Alice will come back.’ Excellent. But will John Luther’s coat?

 

Mad Max: Fury Road

Looking (for want of a more elegant term) fucking insane, the trailer for Fury Road throws as much sand and exhaust fumes in your face as possible and then drives off, tyres screeching.

In the bleach-dry apocalyptic landscape, Tom Hardy is ‘mad’ Max Rockatansky, Skins alumni Nicholas Hoult plays a fella called Nux, and Charlize Theron plays a furious warrior lady called – I shit thee nay – Furiosa. This looks to be one of those flicks you can enjoy while mindlessly pawing popcorn into your mouth. Nothing wrong with that at all. Bring it on.

 

Midwinter of the Spirit

Stephen Volk, the man who scared a generation and possessed Michael Parkinson with a malevolent spirit in Ghostwatch, has adapted Phil Rickman’s books about a female exorcist priest, Merrily Watkins. So hopefully this will be suitably scary.

In Midwinter of the Spirit Watkins has to use all her knowledge of the paranormal to solve a grisly murder. I’m starting to sense a theme here with ITV’s 2015 dramas…

 

Mr. Holmes

This movie adaptation of Mitch Cullin’s novel, ‘A Slight Trick of the Mind’, stars Ian McKellan as a 93 year old Sherlock Holmes, retired with his bees on the Sussex Downs. In his dying days he’s attempting to crack an unsolved mystery, and is aided by his housekeeper’s young son.

With a cast that includes Laura Linney, Phil Davis, and Roger Allam, Mr. Holmes has ‘class’ written all over it.

 

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