Best of the US

25 October 2012

Channel 4 continues to demonstrate it is the home of quality US drama programming, snapping up the UK broadcast rights to some of the biggest titles around. Below is an overview of the series' currently making waves in the US and which are set to premiere across the Channel 4 Network in 2013.

The Mindy Project

Currently enjoying huge critical success stateside, The Mindy Project comes from the pen of. Emmy Award-nominated writer/producer and New York Times best-selling author Mindy Kaling ("The Office")

Despite having a successful career, Mindy Lahiri (Kaling) is unlucky in love and desperately needs to get her personal life back on track before her friends and colleagues are forced to stage an intervention

Funny, impatient and politically incorrect, Mindy can quote every romantic comedy starring Meg Ryan in existence. She loves the good ones and the bad ones, because the girl always gets the guy. Mindy is determined to be more punctual, spend less money, lose weight and read more books - all in pursuit of becoming a well-rounded perfect woman...who can meet and date the perfect guy. Despite her hectic personal life, Mindy is a skilled OB/GYN and shares a practice with a few other doctors, none of whom makes life any easier for her. As Mindy attempts to get her career off the ground and meet a guy who passes her red flag test (no drug habits, no skinny jeans and no secret families, among others), only time will tell if she gets her romantic comedy ending.

Nashville

Created by Oscar winning s Callie Khouri ("Thelma & Louise"), starring Connie Britton ("Friday Night Lights," "American Horror Story") and Hayden Panettiere (Heroes), Nashville is set against the backdrop of the cutthroat world of country music

Rayna Jaymes, is a country superstar faced with a fading demographic, a conniving plutocrat father, a flawed marriage and a young nemesis in the perky form of Juliette Barnes who is vying for the top spot.

Rayna's latest album isn't selling, and her current tour is struggling. When her record label offers her a chance to "co-headline" with-i.e., open for-Juliette, a southern-fried auto-tuned Taylor Swiftian, her demise seems inevitable.  But this not-so-old gal hasn't got to where she is, without learning a trick or two, and isn't going down without a fight.

With the LA Times citing 'Nashville' as ‘ bold, ambitious and fun' it's time to dust off those cowboy boots, and polish your rhinestones and get ready for hoedown of epic  proportions.

 

Boss

Hollywood Reporter called it a ‘wholly impressive new drama that comes out of the gate with gravitas, swagger, originality and intrigue' and the titular role secured Kelsey Grammer his first Golden Globe Award for Best Actor earlier this year.

Mayor Tom Kane (Kelsey Grammer) sits like a spider at the centre of Chicago's web of power; a web built on a covenant with the people. They want to be led, they want disputes settled, jobs dispensed, and loyalties rewarded. If he achieves through deception and troubling morality, so be it. As long as he gets the job done, they look the other way.

Yet despite being the most effective mayor in recent history, a degenerative brain disorder is ripping everything away from him. He can't trust his memory, his closest allies, or even himself.

Kane's wife Meredith (Connie Nielsen) knows nothing. Theirs is a marriage of convenience. Kitty O'Neil (Kathleen Robertson), Kane's advisor, has her suspicions but stays silent. And Kane's political advisor Ezra Stone (Martin Donovan), a Yale graduate with a rough edge, remains questionless.

Only Emma (Hannah Ware), Kane's estranged daughter, has a chance of learning his secret. This is going to be the toughest term yet for the Boss.

 

The New Normal

The New Normal is the latest fresh new US comedy from Ryan Murphy - the creator of Glee and American Horror Story - about the "new normal" family. Convinced that a baby is the one thing missing from their fabulous life, Beverly Hills couple Bryan (Andrew Rannells) and David (Justin Bartha) enlist the help of a surrogate in an effort to make their dream a reality. Enter Goldie (Georgia King), a Midwestern waitress and single mum looking to escape her dead-end life and small-minded grandmother played by Ellen Barkin. With her 8-year-old daughter in tow, the beginnings of a family unit begin to form, which swiftly becomes the "new normal". There are also guest appearances from Nicole Richie and George Takei.

 

World Without End

Set in the 14th century, two hundred years after construction of the great cathedral in Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett's World Without End picks up the epic tale of Caris, a strong, passionate young woman, who inspires her medieval town of Kingsbridge to rise up and confront the dominant spiritual and political powers of the Church and Crown. While their reach and influence was all pervasive, the catastrophic effects of the Great Famine, war and plague had plunged the lands into chaos and so undermined the old political order. With the shadow of the Black Death stalking the lands and crippling poverty threaten to drag them under, Caris and her townsfolk must fight to save their town from ruin and, ultimately usher in a new era of freedom, innovation and enlightenment.

Featuring: Cynthia Nixon, Miranda Richardson, Peter Firth, Charlotte Riley, Tom Weston-Jones, Rupert Evans, Ben Chaplin.