KOOL TV BABE OF THE WEEK: 'HUNTED's MELISSA GEORGE

Strike a pose! The lovely Australian film and TV actress Melissa George satisfyingly mixes innocence and sex appeal. Image: MelissaGeorge.com

With a fine career in popular cult international movies-often playing a vulnerable heroine who shows true courage and resourcefulness in the worst and most heinous life-threatening situations, in successes like the mountain climbing drama, A LONELY PLACE TO DIE, vampire gore fest 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, the TWILIGHT ZONE'ish TRIANGLE (a very enjoyable movie that's well worth watching) and TV movies like Pierce Brosnan's recent Stephen King adaptation BAG OF BONES, as well as a run in the hit US spy drama ALIAS, gorgeous Australian actress Melissa George hits British shores once again, this time for the small screen in what looks set to be a promising new BBC action thriller series, HUNTED, created by THE X-FILES top producer/writer Frank Spotnitz (intriguingly starting out as a vehicle for that series star Gillian Anderson), and from the same production team behind the acclaimed fantasy thriller LIFE ON MARS and the long running modern spy saga SPOOKS (known in the US as MI5).

In HUNTED, the shapely Miss George is the once elusive Samantha Hunter, a top spy who has to return to her once employers, a shady and shadowy outfit known as Byzantium, to track down and eliminate an enemy force out for payback against her. During the course of this surely very glossy series, Sam has to work out who this enemy combatant is, and, most importantly, who she can trust. For time is running out...

Trailer: ‘Hunted’ 90-second Trailer from the BBC - Melissa George

Agent on the run: George as Sam in HUNTED. Image: BBC/SHINE INTERNATIONAL.

From early footage, the new show, very much keeping the SPOOKs film-making style, and which apparently took quite a bit of time in the behind the scenes process to get made, looks fast paced and intriguing, with George a capable lead in the action/ character stakes. She's backed up with a solid and intriguing supporting cast, too, including GAME OF THRONES enjoyably slimy Stephen Dillane and sneery Patrick Malahide, as well as the no doubt intimidating presence of LOST's Mister Echo himself, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. It heads to UK and US TV screens this Autumn...

THE "HIDDEN" WORLD OF HARRY VENN!

Disturbing and dangerous events for Thekla Reuten, Philip Glenister and David Suchet in the new London-based conspiracy thriller HIDDEN. Image: BBC.

His beloved and iconic role as seventies and eighties ball busting, criminal chasing legend Gene Hunt may now be over with the completion of the time travel/detective series LIFE ON MARS and its sequel ASHES TO ASHES (with his distinctive fiery red Audi Quatro finally put in lock up storage alongside him!), but respected actor Philip Glenister isn't one to rest on his laurels and has continued to make the kind of high quality and compulsive TV productions that everyone wants to see. First off, there was the ensemble drama of four friends on holiday soon caught in nightmare from hell scenario: MAD DOGS (of which a second season, continuing on from its cliff-hanger, is in pre-production to commence on SKY ONE HD sometime next year), and now sees a new four part conspiracy thriller, HIDDEN, written by Irish screen writer Ronan Bennet (with input from Glenister himself), and showing on BBC One and HD from tonight at 9pm, which has its soiled feet firmly set in todays economically depressed, conspiracy ridden and thoroughly immoral, corrupted world of London politics, bankers and money brokers. Glenister plays Harry Venn, a debt ridden, boozy, drug taking solicitor getting by- a man with a criminal past who's no stranger to any any of the moral grey areas that the city streets, indeed the world, now present, and whose opportunities he has exploited to his own benefit over the last few years. But then, despite his now bottom of the barrel status, things suddenly get even more interesting. Enter a mysterious lawyer, Gina Hawkes (played by Thekla Reuten), who asks him to find a missing witness to act as an alibi for a client of hers accused of murder: a man who turns out to be an old friend from Venn's re-awakened dark past. From this begins a series of major twists and turns plot-wise that threaten to escalate to a volcanic point where not only the main players are endangered, but also the entire country!

A more than relevant story for todays audiences, with dark overtones that ring truer than ever, THE HIDDEN, described as a modern noir thriller of sorts, is more than backed up by Glenister's always charismatic, intense and fist in your face acting style, alongside a quality support cast that includes David Suchet (as a powerful QC) and "Posh Totty" Anna Chancellor (as a media mogul to make Rupert Murdoch proud!), part of a mission statement for quality drama of the type the BBC has always done so well. If you've enjoyed recent small screen successes like the corporation's complex, highly stylized THE SHADOW LINE, PAGE EIGHT and THE EXILE, you'll bound to get satisfyingly caught up in this, too...

MAYHEM IN MAJORCA: "MAD DOGS"!

Off to sunny Spain, and unaware of the nightmare to come, the four stars of MAD DOGS. Images: SKY ONE. 

SKY ONE’s continuing flirtation with making and selling its own unique drama programmes has been operating since the late nineties (anybody out there remember THE STRETCH, with EASTENDERS stars Leslie Grantham and Anita Dobson, or the weird and largely unfunny drama/comedy THE STRANGERERS from RED DWARF creators/writer Rob Grant?) and has been strengthened in recent years with their involvement with and adapting of several of fantasy author Terry Pratchett’s DISCWORLD books and, most recently, with flavour of the month actor David Morrissey in his playing Detective Thorne in TV adaptation of the famous books by Mark Billingham. Now from the Isleworth Industrial Estate based company comes what looks set to be a modern iconic new four part drama/thriller, with a mix of black comedy thrown in: MAD DOGS, about a group of guys on a Jolly Boys Outing to Spain which soon becomes the holiday reunion from hell, from a story pitched by several of its stars determined to break through into both realms of the acting and scripted storytelling medium and create more noteworthy TV projects not only for them to work in but for audiences in general whose viewing habit boats, especially in the UK, find themselves sailing within a current sea of largely dross modern drama...

Much anticipated by their respective fan bases, the ultimate heavyweight acting combo/pedigree of LIFE ON MARS' Philip Glenister and John Simm, HUSTLE’s resident Jack the Lad con man Marc Warren, and SURVIVORS prison break hero Max Beesley are brought together by their long time pal Alvo (played by Ben Chaplin), basically the lynch pin of the opening episode, for what turns out to be a series of unfortunately painful and bizarre events which will test their ties of loyalty and responsibilities towards each other, and as a group, to the limit, against a sun and sangria atmosphere contaminated with murder and deception. One thing’s for sure, life will never be the same again for any of them, in what looks set to be a production peppered with a strong sense of style and tone not seen since the likes of Ray Winstone and Ben Kingsley’s gripping cult hit, SEXY BEAST, and which will surely prove to be a big winner this year for SKY ONE (and HD), whose marketing/production team must have been knocked off their seats when these actors decided to join forces with them to bring MAD DOGS to life, and making the company ever more keen to create further successful and lucrative home grown productions of this ilk to match the quality imports they’ve been buying from the US.

The series poster promo for the new four part series.

Can MAD DOGS live up to the pre-transmission hype and its prior stylish photo/advertising campaign-trailers directed by the outrageous and clever VANITY FAIR photographer David LaChapelle (teaser link: http://sky1.sky.com/Sky1-HD-Mad-Dogs-New-David-LaChapelle-Promo), and featuring a creepy Tony Blair face masked, gun wielding assassin? Let’s certainly hope so!

Look for a KOOL TV review of MAD DOGS, starting next Thursday on SKY ONE (and HD), soon...