Channel 5 has won the rights to air hit American show The Bible in the UK.

The five-part mini-series drew in huge audiences the States and it will hit television screens in Britain this autumn. Read more & comment »

Former glamour model turned body-builder, Jodie Marsh, is reportedly heading a new Channel 5 documentary exploring the world of bullying.

Jodie, who has previously spoken out about her own bullying experiences both before she was famous, and after is to present the show, entitled Can We Beat The Bullies, The Metro newspaper reports it has been confirmed.
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Fans of the original series of Dallas may recall that Bobby Ewing died in 1985 when he was run over by a car that was driven by his sister-in-law, Katherine Wentworth…

However, fans of the show were so upset and outraged, that the show’s bosses convinced Patrick Duffy to come back to the show and to reprise the role of Bobby, which of course left the dilemma of how to resurrect the character.

As it turned out, the show’s bosses did so by having the entire thing – Bobby’s death – turn out to have been a dream that his wife Pam had, and he returned to the show as though nothing had happened.

And for the new reboot of Dallas, the aforementioned Pammy Ewing is set to face a similarly miraculous return from the grave.. Read more & comment »

The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman has teased that the forthcoming new series of the zombie drama will be the goriest and scariest yet!

The Daily Star quote Kirkman as saying of the new series – which is the third outing of the hit show – “I think you might see a few more dollars on the screen in the third season. It’s gonna be bigger.

“The violence and horrific deaths kind of come naturally in the writers’ room.

“I’m excited about everything. There are new characters and there’s a new tone.

“There are characters that people don’t know about that are coming, which is really exciting.”

In the new series, our own homegrown David Morrissey is playing the role of The Governor, a new villain who’s set to cause chaos for the original survivors… Read more & comment »

As we reported yesterday, the Dallas reboot debuts on Channel 5 on September 5th, and ahead of it, the show’s senior stars have been talking to the media about the highly anticipated follow up to the eighties hit soap.

And among them is of course Patrick Duffy, who’s reprising his role as Bobby Ewing. As viewers of the original show will recall, Bobby was always the nice guy sidekick to Larry Hagman’s villainous character, JR, who is of course Bobby’s brother.

However, in what Patrick described as “art imitating life”, one of his new plotlines is that Bobby’s diagnosed with cancer, which was unpleasantly ironic because of course during filming for the show’s first season, Larry Hagman was, in real life, battling the disease… Read more & comment »

When I was a kid, Dallas was almost compulsory viewing, and I recall watching in awe the glitz and glitter of the fictional Ewing family, with their enormous wealth and beautiful women…

I desperately wanted to be Pam Ewing, and even the drunken Swellen – Sue Ellen, but it always sounded like Swellen – retained her glamour, no matter how nissed as a pewt she was.

They were icons to me, as was Larry Hagman as the ruthless JR Ewing, so I was overjoyed when I heard that the show was returning with a new batch of Ewings as well as the old faves.

The Dallas reboot launches on Channel 5 on Wednesday 5th September at 21:00 on Channel 5, and ahead of it, its stars have been giving interviews promoting the show, and in today’s TV Biz, Larry Hagman has been discussing his return to the show, and how he believes every family can relate to having a resident “baddie” in their ranks… Read more & comment »

When hit reality TV show The Hotel Inspector returns to Channel 5 with a new series next week, world renowned hotelier Alex Polizzi will be faced with naked bodies all over the shop when she visits the Clover Spa in Birmingham…

Called in to assist the flagging nudist retreat, Alex reportedly had to agree to go eau naturelle herself in order to “fit in” with the butt naked staff and guests.

The Daily Star reports, “As Alex wanders around the hotel to get a taster, she comes face-to-face with the guests walking about starkers. And she kept cracking up during the recording.”

Of the ‘special’ hotel, Alex said, “Obviously somewhere inside this 40-year-old carapace is a 14-year-old girl giggling about seeing a man’s willy… Read more & comment »

For every action, there is of course an equal and opposite reaction, and for every beauty contest entrant who’s dazzlingly gorgeous, there’s an ugly dog lurking around somewhere who could win World’s Ugliest…

But enough about Miss World, for Channel 5 are to air ‘Mutt Ugly’ which follows Mugly, pictured above, who is quite possibly the world’s ugliest canine, as he attempts to floor the gruesome competition to land the title of World’s Ugliest Dog 2012.

The World’s Ugliest Dog event has been held every year for the last 24 years at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma (just by the by, that sounds like a horrible illness; ‘I’m sorry to tell you this, but you have Sonoma-Marin in your Petaluma’) California, and Mugly faces some ugly competition in form of Rascal, who’s starred in horror films, and Princess Abbey, who has only one eye.

Produced by Dead or Alive Films, Mutt Ugly will air in August and will follow Mugly’s progress, from his preparations in the UK, his first ever flight, and his subsequent arrival in the US, right through to the big contest… Read more & comment »

On Channel 5 tomorrow night at 9pm, there’s a harrowing but equally inspirational film about the life of burns victim Terri Calvesbert, which will reveal that she defied all odds to survive a fire that left her horrendously disfigured.

In, The Girl With 90% Burns: Extraordinary People, we’ll hear how Terri was just 22 months old when a fire broke out at her home, which was caused by her mother Julie accidentally leaving a lit cigarette in Terri’s bedroom.

In the fire, Terri’s nose, hair, hands and ears were consumed by the flames at the Ipswich flat, and in fact, her injuries were so horrific, when firefighters first encountered her in her cot, they thought she was a melted plastic doll.

Now, at 15 years old, Terri has undergone countless operations and more than 40 skin grafts in an attempt to rebuild her face and body… Read more & comment »

Alex Polizzi will once again strike fear into the hearts of failing hoteliers around the country as it’s been announced The Hotel Inspector will return to Channel 5 for a brand new 10 part series.

Hotel Inspector Alex was last seen on BBC2 in new her TV venture Alex Polizzi – The Fixer which saw her help a range of struggling family businesses – including a fancy dress shop – turn their fortunes around. It was thought that the move had marked the end of her time as the Hotel Inspector on Channel 5 but she has decided to once again return to her roots.

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Tonight on Channel 5 at 8pm is a fascinating documentary entitled Inside the Titanic, which, kinda as it says on the tin, will take viewers not only to the heart of the story, but the heart of the ship too.

Told in drama-documentary style, the film recounts the events of the fateful night the ship sank in 1912, drawing on records from the official inquiry into the tragedy, as well as personal accounts of those who survived.

The Radio Times reports that among the harrowing stories told, we’ll hear about a man “racing to save his secret mistress” and a nurse who searched flooding corridors for the child in her care.

Julian Fellowes’ mini-series Titanic of course airs as of March 25th but in addition – as we approach the 100 year anniversary of the tragedy – National Geographic magazine has some outstanding and amazing new images in its April edition… Read more & comment »

For those of us still struggling to lose the excess of Christmas, this documentary may provide the impetus needed to just say no to cake and burgers and get more exercise…

Airing on Channel 5 at 8pm is Big Body Squad, which shows the work of a specialist team of ambulance crews whose job it is to ferry heavyweight patients to hospitals all over the country.

It also focuses on the people who care for bedridden Britons who are too morbidly obese to even wash themselves.

The film opens with the shocking revelation that 33% of us Brits will be classed as medically obese by the end of the decade, and it then moves on to 41 year old Keith, who needs hospital treatment following a fall… Read more & comment »

Dallas was, in the eighties, the blueprint upon which many a soap storyline of the future would be based, and was of course the first major soap opera to run a whodunit storyline with their Who Shot JR plotline.

And even though he was indeed shot, he of course didn’t die, and is back in a new reboot from US network TNT and still played by the marvelous Larry Hagman.

In fact, several of the original stars of Dallas are back in the remake, including Patrick Duffy who played JR’s brother Bobby. And Linda Gray is also back as JR’s long suffering wife Sue Ellen.

In the remake, the central focus is on the interfamily feuding between JR and Bobby’s sons, John Ross Ewing and Christopher Ewing, who will be played by Desperate Housewives stars Josh Henderson and Jesse Metcalfe respectively.

Click ‘Read more’ to see the new and extended preview clip… Read more & comment »

Channel 5 have announced that next year, they will broadcast three documentaries under the overall title of ‘My Secret Teens’.

In the films – which will feature Corrie star Kym Marsh, former Loose Women panelist Kate Thornton, and reality TV personality Jodie Marsh – we’ll see today’s teenagers talking about a variety of supposedly ‘taboo’ subjects, such as bullying, eating disorders, and teenaged pregnancy.

Kym Marsh will present ‘Teen Mums and Me’ in which she’ll find out what it’s really like to be a teenaged mother in Britain today. She was herself just 19 when she had her first child, David.

For her film, Jodie Marsh – who formerly starred in Celebrity Big Brother – will broach the subject of bullying, and will reveal that her own childhood was made a living hell by bullies after an accident ‘disfigured’ her nose. Read more & comment »

Airing on Channel 5 tonight as part of the channel’s Extraordinary People season, we get to catch up on what’s happened to Charla Nash, who you may recall was mauled by a chimpanzee, and was lucky to survive.

The show, which airs at 9pm, will begin Charla’s story two years ago, just after the horrific attack in which most of her face was ripped away.

The attack left her blind and with only one finger remaining, however, thanks to pioneering, but painful surgeries, Charla had a face transplant, and is now trying to come to terms with what she’s been through.

Fans of Big Brother may recall that last year, winner Josie Gibson had the nation in stitches when she told her fellow housemates that whenever she’s “feeling down”, she just remembers the woman who had her face ripped off by a chimpanzee… Read more & comment »