Kieren Walker will find himself caught between the living and the dead in new series.
BBC Three has produced some of the best, most inventive sci-fi and fantasy TV of recent years, with Being Human , The Fades and In The Flesh all proving that there's more to the channel than documentaries with funny names.
While Being Human and The Fades have both passed on to another place, In The Flesh is very much alive, and this year's well-received three-part mini-series (one of SFX 's top new shows of 2013) is being rewarded with a rather bigger follow-up.
The new six-part series, due to air in 2014, started shooting last Monday in the North West. That means a return to the village of Roarton, where the living and undead are co-existing in comparative peace, and Partially Deceased Syndrome sufferer Kieren Walker (Luke Newberry) is trying to keep a low profile while building up an "escape fund". Things are rather less peaceful beyond the village boundaries, however. Thanks to a wave of PDS terrorism linked to the Undead Liberation Army, Pro-Living Party Victus is surfing a wave of increased popularity – and the resulting crossfire spells bad news for Kieren.
"Returning to Roarton village has been a real joy, revisiting old characters and inventing new ones, entangling their lives and their loves," says In The Flesh creator and writer Dominic Mitchell. "My hope is that In The Flesh series two will have something for everyone: with high octane genre thrills running alongside emotional, hard hitting domestic drama, with plenty of black humour to boot."
Among the returning characters in the new series are Emily Bevan's fellow recovering zombie Amy, Kenneth Cranham's Vicar Oddie, Harriet Cains' Jem (Kieren's sister) and Stephen Thompson's parish councillor, Philip Wilson. New cast members include Wunmi Mosaku as local MP Maxine Martin, and Emmett J Scanlan as Simon, a disciple of the Undead Prophet.
"I'm very excited to continue on Kieren’s journey, and am delighted In the Flesh will be returning for a second series," says Newberry. "New characters arrive in Roarton introducing him to further challenges and new dilemmas, as he begins to feel trapped between the living and the dead."
