Waking the Dead (TV series)

This article is about the BBC series. For the film, see Waking the Dead (film).
Waking the Dead

Waking the Dead intertitle
Created by Barbara Machin
Starring Trevor Eve
Sue Johnston
Wil Johnson
Tara Fitzgerald
Holly Aird
Claire Goose
Félicité Du Jeu
Esther Hall
Eva Birthistle
Stacey Roca
Country of origin United Kingdom
Original language(s) English
No. of series 9
No. of episodes 92 (list of episodes)
Production
Running time 60 minutes
Release
Original network BBC One
Original release 4 September 2000 – 11 April 2011
Chronology
Related shows The Body Farm
External links
Website

Waking the Dead is a British television police procedural crime drama series produced by the BBC featuring a fictional London-based Cold Case unit composed of CID police officers, a psychological profiler and a forensic scientist. A pilot episode aired in September 2000, and there were a total of nine series. Each story is split into two hour-long episodes, shown on consecutive nights on BBC One. A third series episode won an International Emmy Award in 2004. The programme was also shown on BBC America in the United States, though these screenings are edited to allow for advertising breaks, as well as UKTV in Australia and New Zealand and ABC1 in Australia. The show aired its final episode on 11 April 2011. A spin-off from the series, titled The Body Farm, revolving around forensic scientist Eve Lockhart (Tara Fitzgerald), was announced by the BBC in January 2011 and ran for just one series.

Plot

Overview

The programme follows the work of a special police team that investigates "cold cases", which usually concern murders that took place a number of years ago, and were never solved. The team, composed of head officer Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd (Trevor Eve), psychological profiler Dr Grace Foley (Sue Johnston), Detective Inspector Spencer Jordan (Wil Johnson), as well as a number of other supporting characters, uses evidence which has recently come to light, as well as contemporary technology to examine former evidence.

Initially, Boyd, Grace and Spence were accompanied by junior DC Mel Silver (Claire Goose), and stern forensic scientist Frankie Wharton (Holly Aird), however both left after the end of the fourth series. Felix Gibson (Esther Hall) and Stella Goodman (Felicite Du Jeu) replaced them in the fifth series, before Eve Lockhart (Tara Fitzgerald) replaced Felix from the sixth series onwards. Katarina Howard (Stacey Roca) replaced Stella in series eight, while Sarah Cavendish (Eva Birthistle) replaced Katarina in series nine. Although the plotlines generally centre around the case, other storylines have been incorporated across the years, including Boyd's anger management issues and his being re-united with his son, Grace suffering from cancer, Spencer being shot at the hands of one of his former colleagues, and Mel's death, which creates a chain of events lasting across two series.

The show also addressed sensitive issues such as fanaticism within different religions, international organised crime, child abuse within the Catholic Church, war crimes in Bosnia, forced child labour, torture, homophobia and racism. The BBC issued disclaimers twice on the show when it touched upon issues sensitive to the Labour government of the time (once about banking frauds within the City of London establishment and once about the involvement of the UK in the Iraq war). Some of the issues were dealt with through the conflicting views of Peter Boyd (a white middle-class liberal) and Spencer Jordan (a black working-class conservative).

Trevor Eve stated that the ninth series would be his last, and the series was wrapped up rather than continuing without Eve as the star. A total of 46 stories aired across the nine series.

The Body Farm, a spin-off revolving around forensic scientist Eve Lockhart (Tara Fitzgerald), was commissioned by the BBC. However, after poor ratings and reviews, it was wrapped up after just one series.

Characters

Police

Doctors

Episodes

Reception

The first series secured strong ratings, with "Burn Out" receiving 8.4 million viewers and a 38% audience share.[3] Persistently high ratings meant the programme was recommissioned each year for either the summer or winter schedule. The sixth series began with strong ratings, with "Wren Boys" achieving 9.2 m viewers and a 35.2% audience share.[4] The second part dropped to 8.6 m, but still gained a 33% audience share.[5] Following the successful transmission of the third series and an International Emmy Award nomination for "Special Relationship" written by Stephen Davis and directed by David Thacker, a further two series were commissioned with the number of stories expanded from four to six.[6] Waking the Dead won an International Emmy Award the following year for "Breaking Glass", written by Stephen Davis and directed by Maurice Phillips, and "Multistorey", written by Ed Whitmore and directed by Bob Bierman.[7]

Home media releases

All nine series have been released on DVD in the United Kingdom via 2 Entertain Ltd, under the BBC DVD banner. All nine series are also available in a complete boxset. Series one to seven have been released by BBC Video in the United States, while all nine series have been released in Australia via Roadshow.

DVD name Release dates
Region 1 Region 2 Region 4
Series One 24 October 2006 12 September 2005 2 March 2006
Series Two 16 October 2007 26 June 2006 1 April 2010
Series Three 20 January 2009 25 September 2006 1 June 2010
Series Four 19 January 2010 29 January 2007 4 August 2010
Series Five 18 January 2011[8] 10 September 2007 5 October 2010
Series Six 17 January 2012[9] 19 May 2008 2 December 2010
Series Seven 15 January 2013[10] 3 May 2010 3 February 2011
Series Eight 17 September 2013 12 July 2010 3 May 2011
Series Nine 20 May 2014 2 May 2011 3 June 2012
Series One-Nine N/A 2 May 2011 N/A

See also

References

  1. "About the Show". BBC. Retrieved 22 September 2009.
  2. "Series 6 Episode Guide". BBC. Retrieved 22 September 2009.
  3. Digital Spy author (2001-06-22) Feltz return grabs 4m, Digital Spy, retrieved 2007-01-06
  4. Waking the Dead returns to BBC1 with 9.2m, Broadcast Now, retrieved 2007-01-10
  5. Waking the Dead rouses 8.6m, Broadcast Now, retrieved 2007-01-10
  6. Wilkes, Neil (2003-11-04) 'Waking the Dead' gets two new series, Digital Spy, retrieved 2007-01-06
  7. BBC News (2004-11-23) UK sweep up at global Emmy Awards, bbc.co.uk, retrieved 2007-01-06
  8. "Waking the Dead DVD news: Announcement for Waking the Dead - The Complete 5th Season - TVShowsOnDVD.com". Retrieved 18 June 2016.
  9. "Waking the Dead - The Complete 6th Season DVD Information - TVShowsOnDVD.com". Retrieved 18 June 2016.
  10. "Waking the Dead DVD news: Announcement for Waking the Dead - The Complete 7th Season - TVShowsOnDVD.com". Retrieved 18 June 2016.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/14/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.