EXCLUSIVE: Your Honor creator Peter Moffat is teaming with Nisha Parti (The Boy with the Topknot) and Imran Mahmood (You Don’t Know Me) on an ITV drama that it says will “reimagine the crime and courtroom genre.”
Saviour will follow medical student Ben, who goes to a fancy-dress party in his dad’s police uniform. Ben only has eyes for Xenia, and when he sees her being attacked by a man on his way home, he has no choice but to intervene, urged on by a bystander innocently assuming he is a real police officer. When things go awry, he makes a desperate call to his dad, who tells Ben exactly what to do next. Running parallel with Ben’s story, the audience is introduced to Indy, a criminal barrister. Casting will be revealed at a date closer to filming next year.
ITV branded Saviour a “refreshing reimagining of the crime and courtroom genre.” Double-BAFTA winner Moffat, whose past credits include Showtime’s Your Honor and the BBC’s Criminal Record, and who is currently penning an ITV drama about the infected blood scandal, is EPing alongside Parti, who was behind the BBC’s BAFTA-nominated feature The Boy with the Topknot. The pair have enlisted first-time TV writer Mahmood to write Saviour. Mahmood is a former criminal barrister whose first novel, You Don’t Know Me, became a BBC drama starring Sophie Wilde. Parti Productions and Doctor Foster maker Drama Republic are producing Saviour.
Mahmood said: “I’ve always wanted to use my experience as a criminal barrister to explore the real criminal justice system at work – both its strengths and its failings, and there is no better medium than the screen to explore it.”
The series was greenlit by ITV drama boss Polly Hill and Helen Ziegler, with the latter overseeing production. Parti said she is “so grateful to Polly Hill and ITV for seeing the potential in our script and giving us a chance to make this wonderfully gripping story.”
According to Broadcast Magazine, Parti was one of a number of producers from under-represented backgrounds who recently met with senior broadcasting execs including at ITV to discuss support for diverse-led production outfits.
“Reimagining” traditional precincts appears to be a priority for ITV at present. The network is also “reimagining” the court of Henry VIII via a period drama about a young Elizabeth I from a trio of ex-Grey’s Anatomy showrunners, we revealed last week.