ITV has released details of the second episode of Series 5 of Primeval, which airs on Saturday 23rd June at 5.45pm.

The creatures to be featured are the liopleurodon - a large, carnivorous marine reptile - and a raptor ancestor.


The six-part series, which begins on ITV1 this coming Saturday at 6pm, was originally shown on digital channel Watch in May and June last year under an agreement that saw Series 4 broadcast first on ITV1 before being shown on Watch.

It stars Hannah Spearritt as Abby Maitland, Andrew-Lee Potts as Connor Temple, Ben Miller as James Lester, Ruth Kearney as Jess Parker, Ciaran McMenamin as Matt Anderson, and Ben Mansfield as Captain Hilary Becker.

The original cast of Terry Nation’s acclaimed series Blake’s 7 are reuniting for a special audio episode that will be released in February 2013.

The audio is being released by Big Finish in a licence deal with B7 Enterprises.

Written by Peter Anghelides, Warship finds the spaceship Liberator acting as the sole line of defence against a massive alien invasion fleet, while Blake and his crew desperately await the arrival of help from the most unlikely of sources – President Servalan and her Federation forces…

“This is the Blake’s 7 episode that we’ve always wanted to hear,” says producer David Richardson. “It fills in the missing gap in the mythology, following the Galactic War, and ultimately to Blake and Jenna’s departure as members of the Liberator crew. And it tells a whole lot more too – that alien attack force is actually far more destructive than expected, but the Federation may just have a surprise line of defence…”

“I’m delighted to see Big Finish tackle their first full cast Blake’s 7 story,” says Andrew Mark Sewell, Executive Producer of B7 Media, “and it’s great that Peter’s script so perfectly captures the spirit of the original to tell (and complete) such a significant – but previously unseen – part of the whole mythos.”

Warship stars Gareth Thomas as Roj Blake, Paul Darrow as Kerr Avon, Michael Keating as Vila Restal, Sally Knyvette as Jenna Stannis, Jan Chappell as Cally, Jacqueline Pearce as Servalan and Alistair Lock as Zen and Orac.

The hour-long story will be released in February 2013 as a double disc set, with the second disc comprising interviews and behind the scenes material from the historic cast reunion at the recording session. It will retail for £12.99 on CD and £9.99 on download from bigfinish.com.

A novelization of the episode will also be released in February 2013, in ebook form only. The book will retail at £4.99, and expand upon the cataclysmic events and key developments in the story.

The fifth series of Primeval is to be finally shown on terrestrial television.

ITV1 will start airing the six-part series on Saturday 16th June at 6pm. It was originally shown on digital channel Watch in May and June last year under an agreement that saw Series 4 broadcast first on ITV1 before being shown on Watch.

The creature appearing in episode one is a giant burrowing insect, based on a mole cricket, and an ITV press statement said: The series stars Hannah Spearritt as Abby Maitland, Andrew-Lee Potts as Connor Temple, Ben Miller as James Lester, Ruth Kearney as Jess Parker, Ciaran McMenamin as Matt Anderson, and Ben Mansfield as Captain Hilary Becker.

Production on the 13-part spin-off series Primeval: New World began in March in Vancouver and will air on Watch this year. It will feature a cross-over from the original series.

The three episodes of Sherlock Series 2 were the three most-requested programmes on the BBC iPlayer for January 2012.

In figures released for the January-April period, episode 1 – A Scandal In Belgravia – broadcast on New Year's Day was top with 2,528,000 requests, episode 3 – The Reichenbach Fall – shown on 15th January was second with 1,913,000 requests, and episode 2 – The Hounds of Baskerville – which aired on 8th January was third with 1,689,000.

This meant that with A Scandal In Belgravia, Sherlock also had the most-requested episode per series that month, receiving more than twice as many as the second-placed Top Gear India Special of 28th December 2011 (included in January's figures with a figure of 1,116,000 requests, downgraded from the December 2011 figure of 1,311,000). The next most-requested episode of January 2012 – and next most-requested episode per series of January 2012 – was the New Year's Day edition of EastEnders, which received 1,097,000 requests.

The premier episode of Being Human Series 4 received 593,000 requests in February, and the first episode of the comedy series Pramface, co-starring Yasmin Paige, received 389,000 requests, making them the tenth and 17th most-requested episodes per series of that month, while in March, episode 2 of Pramface received 541,000 requests, Being Human Series 4 episode 7 had 403,000 requests, and the first episode of Dirk Gently received 343,000 requests, making them the ninth, 13th, and 20th most-requested episodes per series of that month respectively. The film version of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, co-starring Bill Bailey, got 349,000 requests when it aired in March. Finally, April saw the film Kidulthood, written by and co-starring Noel Clarke, get 342,000 requests.

Monthly performance packs have not been published by the BBC since December 2011. They will return to a monthly publication schedule from next month, said the corporation.

Total requests between January and April this year averaged around 190 million per month, with more than 140 million for TV and around 46 million for radio programmes - up by 24 per cent on the same period last year.

There was a massive increase in requests from mobile and tablet devices. These went up by 94 per cent on April 2011, with 15 per cent of total programme requests coming from mobiles and tablets in April 2012.

Apple announced that the BBC iPlayer app for iPads was the top free app of all time in the UK.

The BBC also reported that demand from internet-connected devices such as Smart TVs, games consoles, and Blu-ray players had continued to grow, with 11 per cent of all requests in April 2012 – up by 57 per cent on April 2011.

The full breakdown for January to April 2012 is available as a PDF here.

Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss told Digital Spy at the BAFTA TV Awards on Sunday that he was writing the first episode of Series 3, adding that it would be based loosely on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventure of the Empty House. He said:

Dirk Gently star Stephen Mangan revealed today that the BBC Four show had been axed.

The actor tweeted: "It gives me no pleasure whatsoever to report that the BBC have decided not to make any more ‪#DirkGently‬."

A tweet later in the day from the production team said they didn't think another channel would pick up the show, although they offered a glimmer of hope by also saying "but you never know".

A pilot episode that was shown in December 2010 garnered 1.1 million viewers, leading to a three-part series that aired this March - the first drama series to be commissioned for the channel. However, the ratings for it reportedly slipped from 844,000 to under 600,000.

A BBC spokeswoman said: The episodes, written by Howard Overman, Jamie Mathieson, and Matt Jones, were based on the books by Douglas Adams. The show was produced for BBC Cymru Wales by ITV Studios in association with The Welded Tandem Picture Company.

Andrew Scott picked up the Supporting Actor BAFTA TV Award last night for his portrayal of Jim Moriarty in Sherlock.

Fellow Sherlock actor Martin Freeman, who plays Dr John Watson in the BBC One drama, had been vying with him for the prestigious honour.

Sherlock title actor Benedict Cumberbatch missed out on the Leading Actor gong, which went to Dominic West for his portrayal of Fred West in ITV1's Appropriate Adult. John Simm had also been nominated for the Leading Actor BAFTA, for the role of Tom Ronstadt in BBC One's Exile.

Sherlock lost out to Celebrity Juice in the YouTube Audience Award, but series co-creator Steven Moffat was given the 2012 BAFTA Television Special Award by Cumberbatch and Matt Smith in recognition of his outstanding creative writing contribution to television - see below (video via Radio Times):



Click here for the full list of winners at the ceremony, which was held at the Royal Festival Hall in London.