Drama series

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“Superb, layered, innovative, bold, glorious, totally irresistible,” was the verdict of one judge on...

... Life on Mars at this year’s Broadcast Awards. The judging panel had little doubt that the series was the year’s best new programme. Not a remake, yet appealingly nostalgic, the fast-paced BBC1 series displayed a smart originality and succeeded in taking the well-worn detective drama genre somewhere new.

Producer Kudos and BBC1 cleaned up with the show, which stars John Simm and Philip Glenister as unreconstructed 1970s copper DCI Gene Hunt - one of the best new characters to emerge in recent years. Life on Mars earned 30 points with wins at Bafta, the Broadcast Awards, the Broadcasting Press Guild Awards, Monte Carlo and an International Emmy.

This left quality in the shape of Doctor Who trailing with 17 points, although the BBC’s much-vaunted revival made the shortlists for the RTS, Broadcast, Monte Carlo and Television and Radio Industries Club awards, and the Doctor emerged victorious at the National TV and TV Quick awards.

Cracker writer Jimmy McGovern enjoyed a welcome return to form with BBC1 series The Street, a series of inter-related -contemporary dramas set in a -single street in the north-east which came third in our list.

Featuring a surefire cast, including Jane Horrocks, Jim Broadbent, Sue Johnston and Timothy Spall, the series worked with new writers to explore the darker side of human nature with wit, intelligence and compassion. “After weeks of watching awful -dramas... having a McGovern drama turn up is like having Elvis walk into the room,” was Caitlin Moran’s verdict.

Channels and producers
If the BBC’s performance in single drama lacked sparkle, it redeemed itself in drama series, with BBC1 scoring 77 points thanks to standout dramas including Life on Mars, Doctor Who, The Street, Jane Eyre, The State Within and The Amazing Mrs Pritchard.

Channel 4 came a distant second place with 13 points clocked up by Sugar Rush and series 3 of Shameless. Despite the channel’s growing reputation with single and factual drama, fiction chief Liza Marshall admits that returning series still represent a challenge. “Contemporary drama series are notoriously hard to get right,” she says. “As with any creative process some projects gel and become big hits and others don’t.”

Kudos came top of the producer’s creative poll with 35 points thanks to Life on Mars, Spooks and The Amazing Mrs Pritchard.While the BBC’s in-house department impressed with 25 points, all the other highest scoring creative producers in this genre were indies, with familiar names such as Shine (Sugar Rush) and Company Pictures (Shameless) cropping up. Their performance underlines the fact that when it comes to innovation in drama series broadcasters continue to look to  the indie sector.

Top drama series channel and producers

In house producers
1 BBC  25

Creative Focus: Life on Mars
One of the big surprises of the year was that Life on Mars failed to win the best drama series Bafta, which was a blow given that co-creator Ashley Pharoah, spent eight years trying to get the series on air.

“The biggest obstacle was persuading a conservative commissioning culture to embrace the weird,” insists Pharoah. “The fact that the show is lauded in America, but somewhat grudgingly recognised here, shows that the older generation in our industry still need persuading that television drama didn’t end with Cathy Come Home.”

The series started life when Pharoah and co-creators Matthew Graham and Tony Jordan were packed off to Blackpool and told not to return without a good series idea. Life on Mars was the most off-the-wall idea the trio came up with.

“Initially we pitched it as ‘Anally retentive contemporary cop is knocked over by a car and wakes up in the 1970s’. It’s fair to say that the first drafts of the pilot script leant more towards comedy.”
Many drafts later and the series was still in the doldrums.

It was the BBC’s John Yorke, Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter who finally got it off the ground. Says Tranter: “John Simm, Philip Glenister and Kudos have made it the most talked-about drama of 2006.”

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