BBC AMERICA CO-PRODUCES NEW DRAMA SERIES OUTCASTS

BBC AMERICA today announced the co-production of a new high concept drama Outcasts. From Kudos Film & TV, the makers of award-winning and international hit series Life on Mars, MI-5, Hustle and Occupation, Outcasts takes viewers into a new world as it explores humans' drive for power, politics and sex in a new post-earth era. Created by Ben Richards (MI-5), the new explosive series stars Eric Mabius (Ugly Betty, The L Word), Liam Cunningham (Clash Of The Titans) and Hermione Norris (MI-5, Wire In The Blood).

· Outcasts (S1, 8 x 60) is a Kudos Film & Television, BBC AMERICA and BBC co-production distributed by BBC Worldwide

Production is now underway in South Africa with Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica), Daniel Mays (The Bank Job, Atonement), Amy Mason (Being Human, Torchwood) and South African actress and model Jeanne Kietzmann also cast in the series.

Outcasts is set in 2040 on a recently-discovered planet and tells of the dilemmas, loves and lives of a group of people setting up a new world. This life-sustaining planet is now home to the surviving population from Earth. Here there is a chance to start again, to bring the lessons learnt from Earth and to put them into action on a new planet.

The series begins on the day the last known transporter from Earth arrives, prompting great excitement on the new planet - who is on board? Friends and loved ones? Important supplies and news from Earth? But also many questions - will the new people bring the problems of Earth with them? Will the mistakes that destroyed Earth be repeated? Will the arrival of a new, would-be leader, rock the fragile and precarious equilibrium of the fresh, unified and courageous new world? And, most importantly of all, how do is a new and better world created?

Executive producers are Jane Featherstone, Simon Crawford-Collins and Faith Penhale for Kudos and Matthew Read for the BBC.

BBC AMERICA brings audiences a new generation of award-winning television featuring news with a uniquely global perspective, provocative dramas, razor-sharp comedies, life-changing makeovers and a whole new world of nonfiction. BBC AMERICA pushes the boundaries to deliver high quality, highly addictive and eminently watchable programming to viewers who demand more. BBC AMERICA is distributed by Discovery Networks. It is available on digital cable and satellite TV in more than 67 million homes.