Nippon TV & Envision Reveal CONNECTED

As part of their co-production partnership to develop new scripted programming for the global market, Nippon TV and Envision Entertainment have unveiled their first project together: CONNECTED.

CONNECTED is a crime drama that takes place largely online, combining virtual screens and conventional single-camera setups. It unfolds in a shared universe where characters from all over the world are “connected” to each other through the internet using their superior online research skills to solve crimes.

The international sleuths form an exclusive online community known as Homebound Detectives, working primarily from their homes, with their own problems, stories and mysteries to tackle.

This series has been designed to expand to a number of localized versions, featuring diverse characters from different countries, while all belonging to the same shared online universe. The worldwide format rights for CONNECTED will be offered for the first time at the upcoming Series Mania Forum, with a special showcase set for March 22 in Lille.

The Japanese version of CONNECTED will air in Japan on Nippon TV in April 2022. It features a 20-something-year-old Homebound Detective in Tokyo struggling to solve a crime with the help of his international online peers. The group winds up uncovering a much larger mystery, which provides a launchpad for future productions around the world.

Envision Entertainment and Nippon TV are in advanced development for a U.K. version of CONNECTED set in the same shared universe.

The concept was inspired by Nippon TV’s scripted series Double Booking, which was produced and broadcast in 2020 during the height of the pandemic. The same production team, led by Creative Director Itaru Mizuno, is working on this project.

Sayako Aoki, business producer in the international business development department at Nippon TV, said: “What we believe is strong about CONNECTED is its relatability you may see in young fresh heroes and their struggles, not necessarily charismatic but charming, and that in how these multilayered and globally expanding stories are told through the online and offline worlds just like how we experience these days. We will be thrilled to see Japanese ‘episode zero’ lead to the U.K. version and to numerous more opportunities, diversifying the universe invented through this East-West collaboration.”

Michael Nakan, chief content officer for Envision Entertainment, said: “We are immensely proud of our work with Nippon TV on CONNECTED, an infinitely flexible crime format which can combine stories in any number of languages and territories in an unobtrusive and believable way. Our unique approach to hybrid communication between characters is a million miles away from forced ‘Europudding’ co-productions and offers a genuinely seamless opportunity to tell stories with local resonance and international scale. We look forward to working with partners around the world to develop a truly global group of Homebound Detectives.”