TELEVISION

THE small screen will continue to be a big competitor for the cinema in 2018 with some top-notch drama.

BBC’S Troy: Fall of a City, by David Farr, the writer of 2016’s The Night Manager, is a decadent eight-parter following the story of Paris and Helen, whose passionate affair plunges Greece and Troy into an empire-threatening war.

Meanwhile, for fans of gritty drama, Line of Duty’s Jed Mercurio has written BBC1’S Bodyguard, in which Keeley Hawes plays the Home Secretary and Richard Madden’s hunky character is paid to protect her, even though he doesn’t like her politics. Let’s hope she’s a Tory.

BBC1 also has remakes of War of the Worlds and Watership Down (in conjunction with Netflix), the new series of Doctor Who with Jodie Whittaker in the autumn and new drama Age Before Beauty, from Cutting It writer Debbie Horsfield, who has turned her attention from a hair salon to a beauticians.

For those missing New Doctor Blue Planet II, the BBC’S Jodie, top, and James and next landmark natural Jones in drama Save Me history series is Dynasty, likely to be fronted by Sir David Attenborough, and Mary Berry is back after the Bake Off debacle with new show Britain’s Best Cook.

Elsewhere, Idris Elba is not only back for a long-awaited reprisal of BBC1’S Luther but he’s also created a comedy, In the Long Run, loosely based on his own life growing up in a London tower block in the 80s. It screens on Sky One. And fresh from his Doctor Foster 2 triumph, writer Mike Bartlett has crafted thriller Trauma for ITV, starring John Simm as the heartbroken father of a murdered 15-year-old boy who blames a doctor for his death.

If it’s Suranne Jones you’re missing, she’ll be appearing alongside Lennie James in Sky Atlantic’s gritty Save Me, about former partners whose 13-year-old daughter goes missing. She is also in Hang Ups, a comedy series with Stephen Mangan playing a therapist who probes patients played by the likes of David Tennant, Charles Dance, Celia Imrie and Richard E Grant. Streaming services also have new offerings, with Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan hitting Amazon and the first TV show from film directors Joel and Ethan

Coen on Netflix, a Western called The

Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Soapwise, we’re seeing some exciting returning faces. In Eastenders, Tamsin Outhwaite is back as Mel along with Jessie Wallace’s Kat and Laila Moss, Big Mo. Over in Corrie, Bethany continues her downward spiral by becoming a lapdancer, while in Emmerdale the Dingles face being turfed out of their home. At least “Robron” are set to reunite, with a tease of wedding bells. Phew...