Prime to Premiere Covid-19 Drama – Again

The most rescheduled drama in the history of Prime TV at last will premiere on September 24.

INSiDE was conceived as a short-form drama that the channel would strip in eight 15-minute instalments, from 8.30 Sunday-Wednesday over two weeks.

But that strategy was deep-sixed when its implementation coincided with the Covid-19 resurgence that led to Auckland’s level three lockdown.

Prime rescheduled the series as a two-hour telemovie but than pulled it before finally settling on the September 24 premiere.

INSiDE was created and written by Peter Salmon and, among others, Kura Forrester (Shortland Street) and Tom Sainsbury (Sextortion).

It stars Salmon’s wife, Morgana (Mean Mums) O’Reilly, as a reclusive germaphobe and tech-expert whose tightly controlled world is destabilised by the emergence of an old high school adversary.

INSiDE will screen the same week Prime premieres another local production, JK’s Japan (8.30 Wednesday), in which Sir John Kirwan revisits where he played and coached rugby for 10 years.

Also new that week will be Walking Britain’s Lost Railways (6.00 Sunday) and White House Farm (8.30 Sunday).

In the former, Rob Bell rediscovers some of the 4,000 miles of Britain’s rail network that have been lost to time; the latter is a free-to-air run of a riveting true-crime drama that first screened on SoHo and then streamed on Lightbox.

“Tense and thrilling, White House Farm teeters on too long, but maintains its hold with gripping performances and glossy production values,” was the critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes.