The Netflix streaming service has revealed seven new UK TV shows it's working on, including a new series from Mr Bean actor Rowan Atkinson and Skyfall/1917 director Sam Mendes. While not all of them look like winners, some do, including an adaptation of the best-selling mystery novel The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. This book has sold 200.000 copies in the UK alone, so it looks like a potential success in its making. Taken together, they give us a good idea of what Netflix is doing to build on its existing sequel to British TV shows, including The Crown, Sex Education, After Life, Top Boy, Anatomy of a Scandal, Stay Close and The Last. Bus, many of which are on our list of the best shows on Netflix. Here's a quick run through of some of the new announcements:
- The Red Zone - A football-themed executive comedy produced by Sam Mendes and co-written by the fantastic sportswriter Jonathan Liew, who writes for The Guardian. Netflix explains that it explores "the people and surfaces colliding in the orbit of this weird world of braggarts, sharks, and real talent."
- Man Vs Bee: Rowan Atkinson plays a new character who battles a bee while housing a luxury property - mayhem ensues. Seriously, that's what the series will be.
- Cuckoo Song - A horror television show about two sisters, one human and the other a real monster, who must try to reverse an unfortunate pact and heal the wounds within their families.
- Half Bad: Joe Barton, creator of the fantastic BBC Giri / Haji series, is behind this supernatural series for young adults. Nathan is the son of a particularly feared witch, and has been watched for most of his life to see if he would follow in his family's footsteps.
- Lockwood & Co: This one is exciting. Joe Cornish (Attack the Block) adapts Jonathan Stroud's Lockwood and Co. book series, which is about three young men who work at a psychic detection agency, or a "ghost hunting startup," as Netflix puts it. .
- Baby Reindeer: Adapted from an acclaimed solo piece by writer / actor Richard Gadd, it's about Gadd's interactions with a stalker and the effect the experience leaves behind as a sequel.
- The Seven Deadly Evelyn Hardcastle - Based on best-selling debut novel by author Stuart Turton, this murder mystery has a compelling puzzle at its center. As Netflix says, ``How do you solve a murder when every time you get close to the answer you wake up in someone else's body? ''