Jed Mercurio's 13-part series Critical part of 100 hours of new drama on Sky channels, including Ben Whishaw heist tale
The creator of BBC3's Bodies has written a "real time" medical drama for Sky 1, part of 100 hours of new drama that the broadcaster promised would not be "po-faced, stick up your backside morose".
Jed Mercurio's 13-part series, Critical, will air alongside a stable of new dramas including a one-off on Sky Arts, Foxtrot, about a gang heist gone wrong, starring Ben Whishaw and Billie Piper.
Other new dramas will include The Tunnel, an adaptation of Scandinavian thriller The Bridge, Lucy Kirkwood firefighter drama The Smoke and an Ian Fleming biopic starring Dominic Cooper.
Sky's director of entertainment, Stuart Murphy, said all the new drama across Sky 1, Sky Atlantic, Sky Living and Sky Arts, had an element of humour in common.
Murphy said: "I am very happy to leave the po-faced stick up your backside morose drama to others.
"We don't think there's a rule that serious drama has to be dry and laugh-free and neither do our viewers. We don't want to make shows that sit on your Sky box that you think you should watch but you can't face because they are too depressing."
Murphy, who said its drama launch on Tuesday was the culmination of two years' work at Sky, added: "Despite what some of my competitors might imply, this isn't a zero sum game. Sky's success doesn't depend on another broadcaster's failure.
"While other broadcasters might be nervous about Sky entering the market in such a big way, we are happy to get along and play nicely."
Ray Winstone, who will star in Sky's 1's John Meade Falkner adaptation, Moonfleet, said television drama had now eclipsed film but said the small screen still had some way to go.
"The best scripts are coming through TV now. There's a lot of crap in films," said Winstone at the Sky drama launch on Tuesday.
"By the time the script gets to the actor through the TV system it's usually a good script. In films ... you get four or five scripts coming through a week that are rubbish."
But the actor gave short thrift to television's current appetite for cookery shows.
"I turn on the telly now and all you see is cookery programmes and Big Brother and all that kind of crap. There's room for that but more and more through the BBC, Sky and HBO, we are getting better drama and we need more of it.
"I don't want to see a geezer making a boiled egg. I want to see something that is going to make me think, that is relevant today or takes me away somewhere to another planet."
Murphy, who compared Sky's approach to that taken by US broadcasters such as HBO, FX and AMC, home of Breaking Bad and Mad Men, said Sky's new drama slate "had more in common with film than TV" and promised "big, bold creative risks".
"We subscribe to the HBO, AMC, FX view of the world – we would rather have one person's favourite drama than five people's fifth favourite drama. We believe in focusing our resources on a few key shows. We are not about churning out high volume, low value TV."
Other new Sky shows will include Dracula, its co-production with NBC which Murphy described as "Dangerous Liaisons with fangs" and its Showtime tie-up, Penny Dreadful, made by Sam Mendes's Neal Street Productions.
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The creator of BBC3's Bodies has written a "real time" medical drama for Sky 1, part of 100 hours of new drama that the broadcaster promised would not be "po-faced, stick up your backside morose".
Jed Mercurio's 13-part series, Critical, will air alongside a stable of new dramas including a one-off on Sky Arts, Foxtrot, about a gang heist gone wrong, starring Ben Whishaw and Billie Piper.
Other new dramas will include The Tunnel, an adaptation of Scandinavian thriller The Bridge, Lucy Kirkwood firefighter drama The Smoke and an Ian Fleming biopic starring Dominic Cooper.
Sky's director of entertainment, Stuart Murphy, said all the new drama across Sky 1, Sky Atlantic, Sky Living and Sky Arts, had an element of humour in common.
Murphy said: "I am very happy to leave the po-faced stick up your backside morose drama to others.
"We don't think there's a rule that serious drama has to be dry and laugh-free and neither do our viewers. We don't want to make shows that sit on your Sky box that you think you should watch but you can't face because they are too depressing."
Murphy, who said its drama launch on Tuesday was the culmination of two years' work at Sky, added: "Despite what some of my competitors might imply, this isn't a zero sum game. Sky's success doesn't depend on another broadcaster's failure.
"While other broadcasters might be nervous about Sky entering the market in such a big way, we are happy to get along and play nicely."
Ray Winstone, who will star in Sky's 1's John Meade Falkner adaptation, Moonfleet, said television drama had now eclipsed film but said the small screen still had some way to go.
"The best scripts are coming through TV now. There's a lot of crap in films," said Winstone at the Sky drama launch on Tuesday.
"By the time the script gets to the actor through the TV system it's usually a good script. In films ... you get four or five scripts coming through a week that are rubbish."
But the actor gave short thrift to television's current appetite for cookery shows.
"I turn on the telly now and all you see is cookery programmes and Big Brother and all that kind of crap. There's room for that but more and more through the BBC, Sky and HBO, we are getting better drama and we need more of it.
"I don't want to see a geezer making a boiled egg. I want to see something that is going to make me think, that is relevant today or takes me away somewhere to another planet."
Murphy, who compared Sky's approach to that taken by US broadcasters such as HBO, FX and AMC, home of Breaking Bad and Mad Men, said Sky's new drama slate "had more in common with film than TV" and promised "big, bold creative risks".
"We subscribe to the HBO, AMC, FX view of the world – we would rather have one person's favourite drama than five people's fifth favourite drama. We believe in focusing our resources on a few key shows. We are not about churning out high volume, low value TV."
Other new Sky shows will include Dracula, its co-production with NBC which Murphy described as "Dangerous Liaisons with fangs" and its Showtime tie-up, Penny Dreadful, made by Sam Mendes's Neal Street Productions.
• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.com or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".
• To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.