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‘Temple’: Charter Communications’ Spectrum Originals Boards Mark Strong-Fronted British Crime Medical Thriller

Peter White

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EXCLUSIVE: Charter Communications’ Spectrum Originals has boarded British crime medical thriller Temple.

The company’s original content division is to air the Mark Strong-fronted drama, which was originally commissioned by Sky in the UK, later this spring.

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This comes after Comcast-backed platform Sky renewed the show, which is based on Norwegian scripted format Valkryien, for a second season. Spectrum is set to be more involved in the second season of the show, which is produced by Hera Pictures.

The show tells the story of Daniel Milton, played by Strong, a respected surgeon who finds himself drawn into the underground world of doomsday preppers and bank robbers when he tries to save his wife’s life, by setting up an illicit clinic with obsessive yet surprisingly resourceful misfit Lee (Daniel Mays), in the vast network of tunnels beneath Temple tube station in London. They are soon joined by Anna (Carice Van Houten), a guilt-ridden medical researcher whose past is entangled with Daniel’s and fugitive bank-robber Jamie (Tobi King-Bakare). Daniel does his best to juggle this dysfunctional family as his moral boundaries as a husband, friend and doctor are challenged.

Katherine Pope, who oversees the company’s originals division, told Deadline that it will promote the show to female viewers. “We think it’s for an Outlander audience, it’s very romantic, he’s doing all this terrible stuff but he’s doing it to save his wife. We’re psyched about that,” she said.

The second series takes places a month after the first, which ended on a major cliffhanger, as the characters are all brought back together when the crimes they have sought to bury begin to resurface. Daniel desperately tries to keep everything under control but with Lee falling for a fanatical uber-Prepper and Anna luring patients down to the clinic for illegal drug trials, life is only going to get more insane. Filming starts in early 2020.

Liza Marshall and Mark Strong are exec producing for Hera Pictures with Gabriel Silver as the executive producer for Sky.

Spectrum’s relationship with Sky began after it came on board action drama Curfew. The action drama, which starred Sean Bean, Adam Brody, Billy Zane, Adrian Lester and Miranda Richardson, was set in a near-future London, when a mysterious illness has spread throughout the country, leaving a population gripped in fear. As an increasingly desperate government imposes a strict nightly curfew, there is only one hope for freedom — from the virus and from tyranny: an illegal and potentially deadly street race that takes place once a year.

Unfortunately, the show was cancelled by Sky after one season, a move that Pope calls “heartbreaking” as it performed well for Spectrum, with a particularly high completion rate across digital viewers. Pope added that it was keen to work with producers Tiger Aspect and Moonage Pictures on future projects.

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