It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:
THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES
Paramount announced several new release dates last week, including the Naked Gun reboot starring Liam Neeson, which is set for July 18, 2025. Akiva Schaffer will direct and executive produce the project, which is based on the Naked Gun movies and Police Squad! movies starring Leslie Nielsen. The new film follows the misadventures of Detective Frank Drebin's son, Frank Drebin, Jr. and is said to be a sequel to 1994's Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult."
Among Paramount's news about upcoming release dates was also a note about the action thriller, Novocaine, slated for March 14, 2025. The film is from Robert Olsen and Dan Berk and follows a sheltered bank executive (Jack Quaid) with a rare genetic condition that prevents him from feeling pain. When his bank is robbed and one of his co-workers (Amber Midthunder) is kidnapped, he is forced to act and turn his greatest liability into his greatest strength.
TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN
CBS Studios is expanding its ever growing NCIS franchise by bringing back two fan favorite characters from the mothership series: Tony DiNozzo, played by Michael Weatherly, and Ziva David, portrayed by Cote de Pablo, who will reunite on screen for the first time in a decade. Paramount+ has given a ten-episode series order to the spinoff currently nicknamed NCIS: Europe. Via the logline: "After Ziva’s (de Pablo) supposed death, Tony (Weatherly) left the NCIS team to go raise their daughter. Years later, Ziva was discovered alive, leading her to complete one final mission with NCIS before she was reunited with Tony and their daughter in Paris. Since then – and where we find them in the new Paramount+ original series – Tony and Ziva have been raising their daughter, Tali, together. When Tony’s security company is attacked, they must go on the run across Europe, trying to figure out who is after them and maybe even learn to trust each other again so that they can finally have their unconventional happily ever after."
The Donovans, a new series loosely based on Showtime’s popular drama Ray Donovan, is set at Paramount+, with Guy Ritchie attached to direct and executive produce. The Donovans follows two generations of gangsters, the businesses they run, the complex relationships they weave, and the man they call upon to fix their problems.
NBC has handed a series order to The Hunting Party, a high-concept crime procedural from JJ Bailey, The Endgame co-creator Jake Coburn, and Universal Television. The Hunting Party is about a small team of investigators who are assembled to track down and capture the most dangerous killers our country has ever seen, all of whom have just escaped from a top-secret prison that’s not supposed to exist.
MASTERPIECE on PBS announced that Kate Phillips will return as Miss Eliza Scarlet for a fifth season of investigations, and the series will be retitled Miss Scarlet. Stuart Martin, who played William "The Duke" Wellington in the previous four seasons will not return for Season 5. Miss Scarlet will welcome back many cast members from previous seasons, including Evan McCabe as Detective Fitzroy, Cathy Belton as Ivy, Felix Scott as Patrick Nash, Paul Bazely as Clarence, Simon Ludders as Mr. Potts, and Tim Chipping as Detective Phelps. Series creator Rachael New says, "We will miss our Duke but there is so much in store for Eliza – new crimes, new friends, new foes and new romance. We will be keeping her very busy!"
Breaking Bad star Laura Fraser and Malpractice's Ella Maisy Purvis will play a detective duo in the six-part PBS drama series, Patience. Fraser will play Detective Bea Metcalf, who forms an unlikely duo with Purvis’s young autistic police archivist, Patience Evans. Patience works in the criminal records department of Yorkshire Police, cataloguing and filing the evidence produced during major cases, and is a brilliant, self-taught criminologist with an instinctive eye for crime scenes and a passion for problem-solving. Metcalf is the first person to spot and utilize Patience’s talent, which opens a door into a whole new world for the archivist. Neuro-diversity will play a thematic role in the series, with all neuro-divergent characters within the series to be played by neuro-diverse actors — including Purvis.
Paramount+ has also picked up the UK thriller series, Curfew. Starring Sarah Parish, Mandip Gill, Mitchell Robertson, and singer Alexandra Burke, Curfew is set in a society where all men live under "The Women’s Safety Act," meaning they are bound by a strict curfew from 7PM to 7AM every night, with their movements tracked by an ankle tag 24 hours a day. When a woman’s body is discovered, brutally murdered during curfew hours and left on the steps of the Women’s Safety Centre, veteran Police officer Pamela Green believes that a man is responsible. But in a world where men are bound by the curfew system, her theory is rejected.
Diego Boneta is set to lead the newly greenlit bilingual series, El Gato (w/t), based on the comic book series El Gato Negro by Richard Dominguez. In El Gato, Boneta will play Frank Guerrero, the black sheep of his family, who finds himself at the center of a vast conspiracy when he discovers his father was the titular ‘70s vigilante, El Gato. To survive, he’ll have to solve mysteries decades in the making and unravel the truth about his father’s connections to a modern-day terror plot.
Great American Family network is launching Great American Mysteries, a movie franchise that aims to rival Hallmark Movies & Mysteries. The first movie in the Great American Mysteries series is The Ainsley McGregor Mysteries: A Case for the Winemaker starring Candace Cameron Bure and Aaron Ashmore. Adapted from bestselling novelist Candace Havens’s book of the same name, the project follows Ainsley McGregor (Bure), a former Chicago criminologist who returns to her hometown of Sweet River, Texas. She has chosen to trade full-time crime work to open Bless Your Arts, a market for artisans to sell crafts and wares. But Ainsley cannot deny her first love is crime solving and accepts a position teaching a criminology class at the local community college. Her skills quickly become a major asset to the quaint town, when a murder occurs at a winery owned by her friend, who now stands accused of the crime.
Professor T, the crime series starring Ben Miller (Bridgerton) and set in and around Cambridge University, has been greenlit for a fourth season by ITV and PBS Distribution. In the brand new season, Frances de la Tour, Juliet Stevenson, and Barney White will reunite once more with Professor Tempest (Miller) as he uses his unique insight and analysis to help the police. It returns six months after the shocking finale of Season 3, and the team must overcome their grief to tackle a dangerous crime wave. This time, the gloves are well and truly off for Professor T in his lectures and a new musical pursuit, romance is very much alive for his mother Adelaide Tempest (De la Tour), and the lines between professional and personal become blurred for therapist Helena Goldberg (Stevenson). Meanwhile, DI Maiya Goswami (Sunetra Sarker) takes charge of the police force with series favorite DS Dan Winters (White) fiercely at her side.
John Simm's ITV crime drama Grace, based on the novels by Peter James, has been renewed for a fifth season. The renewal comes ahead of the crime thriller's season four premiere, with the fifth outing set to be made up of four feature-length films each expected to be about two hours long. Specific plot details are being kept under wraps ahead of season four, however, the episodes are reported to be based on the novels Dead If You Don't, Dead at First Sight, Need You Dead, and Find Them Dead.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO
On CrimeTime FM, Tara Moss chatted with Paul Burke about The War Widow; plus modeling, traveling, human rights activism, CRPS, journalism, post-war Sydney, and more.
The latest episode of the Red Hot Chili Writers featured an interview with bestselling crime writer BA Paris about her new novel, The Guest; plus, a discussion of Arabian Noir and a crime anthology set in the Gulf.
The latest episode of Dr. D.P. Lyle's Criminal Mischief podcast featured a Q&A with Tulsa, OK PD Homicide Detective Lt. Brandon Watkins.
The Pick Your Poison podcast looked at a leaf that can cause symptoms of an opioid overdose and another that has resulted in liver transplants and also causes a rash called crocodile skin.