Dark Heart (TV series)

Dark Heart
GenreCrime drama
Based onWill Wagstaffe series
by Adam Creed
Written by
Directed byColin Teague
Starring
ComposerDan Jones
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series1
No. of episodes6 (list of episodes)
Preview warning: Page using Template:Infobox television with "list_episodes" parameter using self-link. See Infobox instructions and MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE.
Production
Executive producers
  • Kate Bartlett
  • Michael Dawson
  • Chris Lang
Producers
  • Chris Clough
  • Letitia Knight
CinematographySam McCurdy & Ed Moore
EditorPhil Hookway
Running time
  • 120 minutes (Pilot)
  • 60 minutes (Series)
Production companySilverprint Pictures
Original release
Network
Release9 November 2016 (2016-11-09) –
15 November 2018 (2018-11-15)
Infobox instructions (only shown in preview)

Dark Heart is a British television crime drama series, based on the Will Wagstaffe novels by writer Adam Creed, that first broadcast on 9 November 2016.[1] The series stars Tom Riley as DI Will Wagstaffe, a police detective haunted by the unsolved double murder of his parents when he was just sixteen years old.[2] A single feature-length pilot, based on the novel Suffer the Children, was written by Chris Lang and directed by Colin Teague. It first broadcast on ITV Encore on 9 November 2016.[3] The initial pilot co-stars Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Tom Brooke, Anjli Mohindra, Charlotte Riley and Miranda Raison.

Following strong audience reception, a series of six hour-long episodes was commissioned in December 2017, with filming taking place in Spring 2018. The series consists of four newly-written episodes alongside the pilot, which has been re-edited, with some scenes re-shot, to form the first two episodes of the series.[4] Lang returned to pen the four new episodes; including two which were co-written by Ben Harris. Teague returned as director.

Jason Maza, Michele Austin, Alex Carter and Gregg Chillin joined the cast following the departures of Brooke and Holdbrook-Smith, who was unable to return to the series because of other filming commitments. Due to the closure of ITV Encore in March 2018, the series transmitted on ITV, alongside a number of other projects originally set for broadcast on Encore.[5] The series began broadcasting on 31 October 2018, with episodes shown on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 9:00 pm.

  1. ^ "ITV Media – Dark Heart". Itvmedia.co.uk. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
  2. ^ "Tom Riley stars in brand new ITV Encore crime thriller Dark Heart". Itv.com. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
  3. ^ "New ITV Encore drama Dark Heart is 'brutal' says its star Tom Riley". Whatsontv.com. 6 November 2016. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
  4. ^ Morgan Jeffery (23 October 2018). "How ITV's Dark Heart evolved from a 2016 pilot episode to the revamped new series". Digital Spy.
  5. ^ "ITV recommissions crime thriller Dark Heart starring Tom Riley". Itv.com. Retrieved 6 December 2017.