Acorn falls for UK original

North American SVoD service Acorn TV has commissioned its third UK scripted series of 2018, a detective drama from the writer of Doc Martin.

Queens of Mystery follows a perennially single female detective and her three famous crime writer aunts who help her solve whodunit-style murders as well as set her up on blind dates.

The series has been created by Julian Unthank (Doc Martin, New Tricks) and will go into production in September. It will comprise three feature-length episodes and will debut in North America in 2019 as an Acorn TV Original.

The show, which will also be available as six 45-minute episodes, is being coproduced by Acorn Media Enterprises, Acorn’s UK development subsidiary, and UK prodco Sly Fox Productions in association with Ferncroft Media.

Production at Sly Fox will be overseen by Linda James and Tim Vaughan, who negotiated the deal with Shane Murphy at Acorn Media Enterprises.

Queens of Mystery follows on from Acorn’s straight-to-series order for detective procedural London Kills and its revival of former Sky comedy-drama Agatha Raisin.

The RLJ Entertainment-backed, international drama-focused SVoD firm has been expanding its global presence in 2018. It launched in 12 Latin American countries in June and has been picking up a number of global dramas to complement its original commissions and coproductions.