Telemystery: BBC One, BBC Four Commission New Crime Dramas

BBC One and BBC Four announced today several new crime dramas in development for the television networks.

BBC One …

What Remains, a 4-part serial. The body of Melissa Young, a 30-year-old single woman, is found decomposed in the loft above her flat two years after her death. How is it that no one missed her, or even noticed that she was gone? What does that say about the life she lived or the society we occupy? And is her killer still at large?

Happy Valley, a 6-part serial. Catherine Crowther is the sergeant on duty when flustered, nervous-looking accountant Colin Weatherill comes into her West Yorkshire police station to report a crime. He's reticent about the details and Colin loses his nerve. The crime he was trying to report was Colin's own brain-child, a plot to kidnap his boss's daughter and keep enough of the ransom to put his kids through private school. And now local drug king-pin David Cowgill has put the plan into action, and Colin's fantasy has become a grim and dangerous reality.

By Any Means, a 6-part thrilling drama that follows a covert police department that, when the legal system fails, go to any lengths to bring the criminal elite to justice. Shadowy and brilliant, the team go about their business, exploiting weaknesses, weaving a web of cunning and deception that leads the unwary target into the arms of justice, by any means.

BBC Four …

Hinterland, a new detective series based in the coastal Welsh town of Aberystwyth and set against the backdrop of mountainous hinterland, isolated farms and close-knit villages. A natural crucible of colliding worlds, where history, myth and tradition come face to face with the modern and contemporary — its panoramic vistas and quaint facade hide a multitude of sins — this is a place that lives according to its own rules, a place where grudges fester, where the secrets of the past are buried deep.

In addition, BBC One has renewed George Gently for a seventh season of four 90-minute episodes and BBC Four will air the Italian crime drama Young Mantalbano, based on the short stories by crime novelist Andrea Camilleri.