Submarine thriller Vigil will return to our screens alongside three other big BBC drama sequels.
The corporation’s chief content officer Charlotte Moore revealed Martin Freeman is coming back in the tense police drama The Responder and Suranne Jones will be diving into another Vigil.
A second series of The Tourist, with Jamie Dornan, is also being made, and Jimmy McGovern’s Time, featuring Sean Bean and Stephen Graham, will return.
Praising Dornan’s amnesia drama set in Australia, she said: “In its first 30 days, 12 million people watched The Tourist – that’s twice as big as the largest show, Stay Close, on Netflix.
“The power the BBC has to reach millions of people is far greater than we perhaps realise.”
Vigil was the UK’s most-watched drama launch in three years, using 30-day viewing data. Its first episode attracted 13.4 million viewers.
Freeman plays night-duty policeman Chris, a “car crash of a human being”, in The Responder, while hit prison tale Time pulled in 11.3 million for its opening episode.
Away from drama the BBC have had to face up to a number of its big names leaving in recent months, including losing Graham Norton from Radio 2.
Asked about major stars’ exits, Moore said: “Look, I think Graham Norton is absolutely genius at what he does. But when a show comes to the end of its life, you find somebody new.
“When a presenter wants to move on, you think about how you evolve the show.”
Other recent departures include Andrew Marr, Jon Sopel and Emily Maitlis from the news department.
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Speaking generally about talent in the Radio Times, she said: “It’d be a worry if nobody was poached. It would mean we clearly weren’t getting things right. It provides a great opportunity for the next generation.”
Moore praised the corporation’s coverage of the Ukraine conflict and what it had offered licence fee payers during lockdown.
She said: “The BBC is proving its worth. I think we did that during Covid.
“There are these moments when there is a real feeling we’ve never needed a public service broadcaster more, to inform and educate and entertain and to bring the nation together.”
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