Upfront season: Nine welcomes Stephen Fry, Lisa McCune, and the return of Tracy Grimshaw
This is part of Mumbrella’s coverage of the 2024 upfront season. Click here to see other articles in the series.
Nine has announced a slew of new programs for 2024, featuring a number of national and international stars.
One of the biggest content-related announcements is the return of Nine figurehead Tracy Grimshaw to Channel 9, in “a new project with details to come.” Grimshaw stepped down from Nine’s A Current Affair in November last year.
UK polymath Stephen Fry will be hosting the first ever local version of Jeopardy!, which he promises “gets under the skin of an audience and reveals more and more depths of delight.”
“I reckon Australia will welcome this uniquely beguiling and endlessly rewarding game, and I can’t wait to get started,” he said of the forthcoming show.
In other game show news, the global phenomenon, Tipping Point, will hit Australia, hosted by tennis legend Todd Woodbridge.
According to Nine’s blurb, “three players will answer general knowledge questions, hoping to win counters which can be used on a large coin pusher, arcade-style machine.”
Nine is also leaning into crime drama, with Human Error, which is inspired by real events, and follows Detective Holly O’Rourke and her homicide team, “as a seemingly open-and-shut murder investigation threatens to destroy her career, her family, and her faith in justice.”
The show is executive produced by John Edwards and Dan Edwards, with producers Greg Haddrick and Samantha Winston, alongside The Age’s crime reporter and podcaster John Sylvester as story consultant.
In the same vein is the 9Network’s new crime thriller, Blood On The Tracks – the Platform Killer. Produced by Easy Tiger and Anton, “when a train commuter is found dead during peak hour, police suspect suicide. But when Detective Kate Fletcher finds links to an ‘accidental’ death at a suburban station, she suspects something far more sinister.”
Elsewhere, Nine dives into reality TV with Do You Want To Live Forever, which finds Dr Nick Coatsworth guiding six Aussies on “a powerful journey to stop the clock and turn back time”, and The Garden Hustle, where Lisa McCune and garden landscaper, The Block’s Dave Franklin, help everyday homeowners and renters to create their very own garden oasis.
The Block’s Norm and Jess spin off on the new series Budget Battlers, where they will “carry out incredible renovations for unsung heroes while showing viewers how you can renovate an entire home on a budget.”
Finally, six elite real estate agents will navigate Melbourne’s property market on Listing Melbourne.
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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If this is the first ever local version of Jeopardy!, why do I recall a Tony Barber edition back in the early ’90s?
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