“Footballers Wive$” Star Zoe Lucker Returns To TV. Also: “Life On Mars”

Footballers Wive$ vixen Zoe Lucker will shed her Tanya Turner talons for HolbyBlue, an innovative police drama from the makers of Life On Mars, MI-5, and Hustle. Lucker will play “a police wife and civilian worker” on what is being billed as BBC’s answer to The Bill. While HolbyBlue is ostensibly a sister show to by-the-books UK dramas like Casualty and Holby City, creator Tony Jordan plans a unique take on the cop show, he tells the Manchester Evening News:

“I think post 9/11 policing has been about shifting priorities,” he explains. “Do you spend your money on preventing a terrorist attack that may never happen, or use it to halt the rise in violent crime that’s all around us every day?

“It’s a tough call but one the police have to make every single day. They also have to keep the government happy by hitting their targets in the process.

“HolbyBlue is a fresh new approach to dramatizing a modern day police force that not only had to deal with hard-nosed criminals but it expected to help fight the war on terror on home soil.”

Speaking of Life On Mars, will Thandie Newton play Philip Glenister‘s sidekick in the show’s sequel, Ashes to Ashes? After the Casino Royale debacle, I’m afraid to get my hopes up, and the likelihood of an actress of her stature doing a television series is slim. But the description is promising: “Ashes To Ashes is the next chapter in the life of Gene Hunt, as seen through the eyes of a modern, no-nonsense woman. It is Moonlighting teamed with a measure of Miami Vice.” I’m sure the soundtrack will at least be fantastic.

Also: Mr. Glenister threatens to release the Gene Genie in front of photographerson a golf course.