ITV orders daytime quiz, Fearless drama

UK broadcaster ITV has ordered a 20x60mins daytime quiz show from Endemol Shine Group prodco Initial, and a 6x60mins political drama from a Homeland producer.

The quiz format is based around a perceived British obsession with top ten lists.

Teams of five players aim to move up a money ladders by finding top ten answers to a range of topics. The more contestants who make it through to the final, the more chance of winning a £100,000 (US$130,000) jackpot.

Warwick Davis (Life’s Too Short, Star Wars) will host, with Richard Greenwood and Jamie Ormerod executive producers and Sarah Timbury series producer.

The commission comes from ITV director of daytime Helen Warner and daytime commissioners Clare Ely and Jane Beacon ordered the series.

The deal, Fearless, is billed as a visceral political thriller from Homeland writer and executive producer Patrick Harbinson and ITV-owned drama house Mammoth Screen.

The series will focus on a solicitor who begins to sense state forces are working against her investigation into a killing of a schoolgirl and the man convicted of the murder she believes to be innocent. Helen McCrory wil play the lead.

“Fearless is a legal thriller,” said Harbinson. “But one that’s written in the crash zone where law and politics collide.”

Filming behins in London and East Anglia in September, with Damien Timmer (Victoria, Poldark, And Then There Were None), Tom Mullens (Endeavour) and Harbinson executive producing.

ITV Studios Global Entertainment has international sales rights.

Writer Harbinson has spent much of the last ten years working on US dramas such as 24, Person of Interest and Homeland.