SundanceTV Reveals Unspeakable, Sundance Now Adds Rillington Place

CBC and SundanceTV have partnered on the new eight-part drama miniseries Unspeakable, focused on the tainted blood scandal in Canada in the early 1980s.

Created by Robert C. Cooper (Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Stargate SG-1, Stargate: Atlantis), Unspeakable is based on first-person experience and two nonfiction books, Bad Blood by Vic Parsons and The Gift of Death by Andre Picard. It chronicles the emergence of HIV and Hepatitis C in Canada in the early ’80s.

SundanceTV also announced a September 10 premiere for the highly anticipated limited series Top of the Lake: China Girl. From Jane Campion, China Girl will broadcast as a three-night special event. The network will present two hours of the six-hour story back-to-back each night with an encore presentation immediately following.

The network will be airing its four-hour documentary series Cold Blooded: The Clutter Family Murders, from Academy Award nominee Joe Berlinger, as a two-night special event on November 18 and 19. The series focuses on the infamous crime that was chronicled in Truman Capote’s seminal book, In Cold Blood: the November 15, 1959, murder of four members of the Clutter family in their home in a small Kansas farming community, a crime seemingly without motive.

SundanceTV’s new psychological thriller Liar will premiere September 27. The six-part series was created, written and executive produced by producers and screenwriters Harry and Jack Williams of Two Brothers Pictures (The Missing, Fleabag) and co-produced with ITV and all3media.

Meanwhile, Sundance Now, AMC Networks’ premium video streaming service, has acquired the miniseries Rillington Place in a deal with BBC Worldwide North America. Starring Samantha Morton (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, In America) and Tim Roth (Twin Peaks, The Hateful Eight), the three-part scripted drama explores the life of serial killer John Christie and the murders at 10 Rillington Place, London, in the 1940s and 1950s. It premieres on Sundance Now on November 9.

Sundance Now has set a September 14 debut for Riviera, starring Julia Stiles (the Bourne series). The ten-part series is set in the south of France and was created by Oscar-winning writer and director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, The Borgias).

There’s a new original comedy coming to the streaming service as well: Back. Created and written by Simon Blackwell (Veep, In the Loop, Peep Show), the six-part acerbic comedy follows Stephen (David Mitchell, Peep Show) as he tries to follow in his recently deceased father’s footsteps and take over the family business, but his plans are soon foiled by the unexpected return of his estranged foster brother, Andrew (Robert Webb, Peep Show). It debuts on Sundance Now in the fall and will premiere on SundanceTV later in 2018. International sales are being managed by BBC Worldwide.