Clone – brand new comedy series coming soon to ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Three
Introduction
To a massed audience of military and secret service hierarchy in a bunker buried deep below a Tesco Metro, brilliant scientist Dr Victor Blenkinsop unveils the result of his life's work: the first human clone.
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Intended to be a prototype super soldier who will eventually replace Britain's volunteer army, Victor discovers – to both his horror and distaste – that his new super weapon is not quite the awe-inspiring creation he expected. In fact, the clone is more likely to hug someone than shoot them.
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Clone, ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Three's new fish-out-of-water comedy, revolves around the education of an innocent being who is seeing and experiencing the world for the first time, and stars Jonathan Pryce, Mark Gatiss and Stuart McLoughlin.
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Together with his cold-hearted creator, Victor, this modern-day Dr Frankenstein and his monster go on the run hoping to find the neurological trigger that will fix the clone and unlock his superhuman abilities.
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Unfortunately, they must also avoid Colonel Black and his crack team of security agents – whose mission is to find them and kill them.
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Also starring in Clone are Fiona Glascott as the intriguing savant-come-local-bartender, Rose, and Oliver Maltman as Dr Blenkinsop's long-suffering assistant, Ian.
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Clone is the brainchild of Adam Chase (executive producer of Friends) and is the first commission from Ash Atalla's (The Office, The IT Crowd, Man Stroke Woman) new production company, Roughcut TV. Together, they share the credits of Executive Producer.
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The sci-fi comedy series also features green screen CGI elements and, notably, it is the first team-written comedy for ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Three, following in the time-honoured American tradition seen on such series as Friends.
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Ash, who met Adam when they were both on the judging panel for ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Three's The Last Laugh says: "Clone differs from most UK comedies in that it has both a traditional sitcom element as well as a sci-fi angle.
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"It's been good to work in a different way, using the American writers room system – and with someone of Adam's calibre.
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"He tells me he has previously worked on a show called Friends, but I'm afraid I've never heard of it."
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Adam Chase says: "I've been a fan of British comedy ever since I was a kid and stumbled upon an episode of Blackadder, in which all the characters died at the end.
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"I wrote Clone for British TV because audiences here are very comfortable with shows that straddle multiple genres. In this case, comedy and science fiction.
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"Plus, you don't often get the chance to kill people in American sitcoms."
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The series was commissioned by Lucy Lumsden, ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Controller, Comedy Commissioning, and Danny Cohen, Controller, ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Three.
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PA/JD