Killing Eve at Last Lands Air Date

TVNZ OnDemand hit Killing Eve will make its broadcast debut on July 24.

It will air 9.30 Tuesdays, on a double-bill with the latest season of Australian prison drama Wentworth.

Killing Eve is a British spy thriller starring Sandra Oh (Grey’s Anatomy) and Jodie Comer (Doctor Foster) that was a breakout hit for BBC America on air and online.

“It now ranks as the network’s No. 1 digital series ever with more than 1 million full episode views to date. In addition, the premiere has become the most watched digital episode in network history,” Deadline reports.

The series, which has already been renewed for a second season, is one of the top 5 best reviewed dramas of the year according to Metacritic and is Certified Fresh by Rotten Tomatoes with a score of 95%.

“From the very start, we felt we had something smart, exciting and different with Killing Eve, and hoped viewers would see what we saw,” said Sarah Barnett, president of BBC America.

“Shows like Killing Eve not only engage and entertain, they create vibrant and passionate fandoms, and that has certainly been the case here. Thanks to the truly remarkable Killing Eve fans, both for spreading the word about the series and for how vocal and creative they’ve been in expressing their love for this show.”

Killing Eve was commissioned only after the BBC in the UK passed and the producers took it to BBC America.

As The Atlantic observes, the series points to where television is heading, thanks to the influence of streaming sites like Netflix and Hulu.

Concepts that might once have been impossible sells to networks or premium cable have proven their potential on other platforms, making outlandish, outré, and oddball pitches more appealing. And with Netflix’s overwhelming influx of content flooding the marketplace, quirkier stories stand out.

The best-reviewed shows of 2018 so far on the website Metacritic include FX’s surreal Atlanta and its trippy Legion, HBO’s violent but tenderhearted Barry, Killing Eve, and the teenage romance-slash-psychopath comedy The End of the F***ing World. None of these shows fits neatly into a genre or an awards category. But they all take creative risks that pay off.

In NZ, Killing Eve’s OnDemand launch helped the streaming service to achieve its best month ever in April, with a 20% jump in streams month-on-month, to 8.9 million.

TVNZOD promotes shows like Eve and Deep State as exclusive content. With TVNZ 1 and TVNZ 2 abandoning most of primetime to stripped reality shows and endless re-runs, TVNZOD is becoming the domain of impressive drama.

Once this would have been a frustrating but now, with TVNZOD streaming in 1080 on Smart TVs, picture quality can be as good online as on air.

Here’s a sampling of the TVNZ dramas and docos you can access only on-demand:

• The Last Post
• Modus
• The Split
• Divided States of America
• Deep State
• Reverie
• Cloak & Dagger
• Acceptable Risk
• AP Bio
• Come Home
• Darkest Taboos
• Death Threat
• Deception
• 21st Century Race for Space
• 35 Serial Killers
• Users Guide to Cheating Death
• The Vietnam War
• Angry White and American

How many of these will graduate to broadcast? Only a handful.

“We do have a number of OD exclusives and we’ll continue to add more titles,” TVNZ corporate communications manager Rachel Howard says.

“Some of our series are OD first with the intention that they may eventually be broadcast on TV. This was the case for Love Island last year and will likely be the same deal this year.

“For other series it’s a case by case basis. Killing Eve will come to TVNZ 2 soon, we don’t have plans for the other titles at the moment, but we may give them broadcast slots if it’s decided that a different audience could be serviced.”