Back on screens ... Absolutely Fabulous
Published: Today at 01:15
OLD faves are coming back and new shows will win hearts faster than Downton's Mr Crawley leaping from a wheelchair. Here LUCY CONNOLLY looks ahead to 2012's TV treats.
January
THE year gets off to a cracking start with great new series and some welcome returns.
Tomorrow sees the start of the second series of BBC1's Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.
Call The Midwife, starring Miranda Hart and Jenny Agutter, will be new to BBC1. It follows the lives of a group of midwives in the Fifties in London's East End. And the con is back on, for the last time, as Hustle returns.
Gavin and Stacey's Ruth Jones makes her first solo outing in Sky1's new sitcom Stella. On the same channel you can also catch the second series of Mad Dogs, starring Philip Glenister and Max Beesley.
Final series ... Desperate Housewives
ABCDancing On Ice returns to ITV1 with some changes — new host Christine Bleakley takes over from Holly Willoughby and Katarina Witt and Louie Spence join the judging panel to replace Emma Bunton and Jason Gardiner. Ciaran Hinds returns in ITV1's Above Suspicion: Silent Scream.
The ladies of Wisteria Lane return to Channel 4 for the eighth — and final — series of Desperate Housewives and Shameless is back too.
Much-loved ... Shameless
Channel 4The adventures of the young Inspector Morse are told in ITV1's Endeavour while a new drama about angels, Eternal Law, starts.
Elf star Zooey Deschanel tries her hand at TV in the Channel 4 sitcom New Girl, new journalism comedy Hacks starts, One Born Every Minute returns and Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy is coming to E4.
Second series ... Sherlock
BBCFebruary
NEW series starting this month include Birdsong, a BBC1 adaptation of Sebastian Faulks' novel set during the First World War.
There's also Inside Men — a drama with Steven Mackintosh about staffers at a security depot who plan a robbery.
Racing drama ... Dustin Hoffman
FlynetHollyoaks' Emma Rigby stars in Prisoners' Wives and This Is England's Vicky McClure joins Gina McKee and Neil Morrissey for new BBC2 police drama Line Of Duty.
Dustin Hoffman comes to Sky Atlantic in Luck, a drama about horse racing. And Chris Moyles and Stacey Solomon will host Sky Living's new dating show Love Machine.
Adaptation ... Birdsong
BBCClaire Danes plays a Jack Bauer-style anti-terrorism agent in top new US drama Homeland, showing on More4, while 2 Broke Girls is a new US sitcom about ex-waitresses who set up a cupcake shop.
Returning shows include Room 101 with new host Frank Skinner plus Upstairs Downstairs, Waterloo Road, Whitechapel, Wild At Heart, Midsomer Murders, Benidorm, Being Human, True Blood and BBC4's Olympics comedy Twenty Twelve. Harry Hill is back for his final series of TV Burp on ITV1.
Spring
THE BBC's answer to The X Factor, The Voice, starts in March, with celebrity mentors including Jessie J, Will.i.am and Tom Jones.
Holly Willoughby and Reggie Yates are on presenting duties.
Spring will also see the arrival of the fifth series of smash US drama Mad Men to Sky Atlantic.The channel will also host the return of Game Of Thrones.
In April, Britain's Got Talent will be back, with Ant and Dec hosting and a judging panel rumoured to include David Walliams, Samantha Womack and Paul O'Grady.
David Tennant and Billie Piper team up with David Morrissey and Lacey Turner for BBC1's improvised drama Love Life.
Another former Doctor Who, Christopher Eccleston, will star in new drama The Fuse as an alcoholic accidental hero.
Business challenge ... The Apprentice
Titanic — a lavish four-part drama from Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes — will mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the liner in April. It will star Linus Roache, Toby Jones and Celia Imrie.
Popular dramas Scott & Bailey, Vera, Lewis, Case Sensitive and Munro will all return to ITV1. Sky1 will see another series of Strike Back plus the start of Smash — described as a "grown-up Glee" and starring Jack Davenport and Will & Grace's Debra Messing.
The IT Crowd's Chris O'Dowd writes and stars in Sky1's Moone Boy, a semi-autobiographical sitcom about a lad growing up in Ireland.
Acclaimed ... Mad Men
In the wake of the success of The Killing, BBC4 has snapped up several new Scandinavian dramas, including Borgen, Sebastian Bergman and The Bridge. There will also be more episodes of Wallander, starring Kenneth Branagh.
There's a new Stephen Poliakoff BBC2 drama, Dancing On The Edge, which stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as a jazz musician in 1930s London.
Stephen Graham and Warren Brown team up for the BBC1 hard-hitting crime drama Savage, set in Liverpool.
There will also be a series of Shakespeare adaptations, with plays including Richard II and Henry V brought to the screen with star-studded casts including John Hurt, Patrick Stewart, Maxine Peake and Julie Walters. May will see the return of The Apprentice and the 57th Eurovision Song Contest comes from Azerbaijan.
Summer
IT'S set to be a summer of wall-to-wall sport on the box with some huge events taking place.
And there's none bigger than the Olympics and Paralympics, especially as London, together with other UK venues, will be playing host.
Comeback ... Dallas
ScopeFootball fans will enjoy the European Championships, taking place in Poland and the Ukraine, and there will also be tennis at Wimbledon, the Tour de France and British Open.
To tie in with the Olympics, there will be a new Absolutely Fabulous special as well as BBC1 drama Bert And Dickie.
It will star Doctor Who's Matt Smith and will tell the story of British rowers Bert Bushnell and Dickie Burnell, who won gold at the 1948 Olympics.
Olympic story ... Matt Smith
The big non-sporting TV event of the summer has to be the return of the huge 1980s US soap Dallas, which has been revamped and will air on Channel Five.
All the original stars will return — Larry Hagman, Linda Gray and Patrick Duffy — and they will be joined by a new generation of Ewings, including Desperate Housewives' Jesse Metcalfe. Timothy Spall and Gavin & Stacey's Joanna Page will be in new BBC1 comedy drama The Syndicate.
It is written by Kay Mellor and follows supermarket workers in Leeds who win the Lotto.
New series ... X Factor
The Hour will be back on BBC2 for a second series, with The Thick Of It's Peter Capaldi joining the cast.
Other returning series include My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, Mount Pleasant, The Accused, Silk, The Big C, Poirot, Miss Marple, DCI Banks and Kidnap And Ransom.
Charlie Brooker takes the mickey out of police dramas with A Touch Of Cloth, a new comedy for Sky1 starring John Hannah and Suranne Jones. And cult film Napoleon Dynamite gets a cartoon remake for a new animated series on Channel 4.
Then in August, it's time to face the music again.
The X Factor returns with a judging panel including . . . who knows?
Autumn
SEPTEMBER sees the return of some of 2011's top shows, from a new series of Strictly Come Dancing and Downton Abbey to the long-awaited third run of award-winning sitcom Miranda which moves from BBC2 to BBC1.
October brings the 40th anniversary of Emmerdale — no doubt there will be some explosive storylines to celebrate.
Tenth series ... Red Dwarf
BBCIn November it is Channel 4's 30th anniversary with a special Big Fat Quiz hosted by Jimmy Carr.
Matt Smith will once again be back as Doctor Who, with Karen Gillan as his companion. But this series will be her last as Amy Pond's departure from the Tardis has already been announced.
There will be a new crime drama on BBC1, Nemesis, which stars former Home And Away actress Melissa George and Mistresses' Adam Rayner.
Back on screens ... Downton Abbey
ITVITV1 will air The Scapegoat, an adaptation of the Daphne du Maurier short story set in 1952 and starring Matthew Rhys, Dame Eileen Atkins and Sheridan Smith.
Some of the country's top comic actresses — Julia Davis, Sharon Horgan and Olivia Colman — will star in Bad Sugar, a new sitcom on Channel 4.
Return ... Strictly Come Dancing
Jack Whitehall has been given his own BBC3 show, Bad Education, in which the young comic both writes and stars as useless secondary school teacher Alfie.
The gritty, critically-acclaimed drama Top Boy will be back for a second series while Red Dwarf makes a return on Dave for an incredible tenth series, with original cast members including Craig Charles.
Fortieth anniversary ... Emmerdale
Sky Atlantic will screen Veep, a new HBO series from comedy anarchists Armando Iannucci and Chris Morris.
Sienna Miller will star in The Girl, a BBC2 feature-length drama about Alfred Hitchcock. In it she plays his love obsession Tippi Hedren — the actress who played the lead in The Birds.
At Christmas there will be specials of The Royle Family and Doctor Who — and a remake of The Snowman on Channel 4.
Out with the old...
DESPITE two trophies at this month's British Comedy Awards and higher ratings than ever, BBC2's Shooting Stars was axed.
And, after their successful transfer to the big screen, The Inbetweeners won't return for any more TV series either.
Out ... Secret Diary Of A Call Girl
Spooks bowed out in 2011 with an explosive finale, as did long-running crime dramas Taggart and Waking The Dead.
After four series, Billie Piper hung up her saucy underwear and won't be back for any more Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, while last orders were also called on Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps.
Finished ... The Inbetweeners
Critically acclaimed comedy drama Sirens, following a group of paramedics, sadly won't be returning to Channel 4.
And there are a couple of big US dramas which, after just one series, won't be back, including The Event and Pan Am.
Axed ... Shooting Stars
Other cancelled shows include Entourage and Brothers & Sisters.
Sci-fi fans were devastated to discover Doctor Who Confidential won't be back, Smallville had reached the end of the road and the Beeb's big budget drama Outcasts was culled after just one series.
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