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PBS Announces Masterpiece Fall 2011 Programs

By April MacIntyre May 31, 2011, 18:26 GMT

01/26/2011 - Rufus Sewell - National Television Awards 2011 - Arrivals - O2 Arena - London, UK © Landmark / PR Photos

The stars turn out in force for PBS’ fall programming.

At the Annual Meeting for member stations, Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton unveiled the series’ fall season, which features all-star casts in new Masterpiece Contemporary presentations and the return of a Masterpiece Mystery! favorite.

This fall Masterpiece Contemporary welcomes Bill Nighy, Rachel Weisz, Michael Gambon, Ralph Fiennes, Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson to its line-up in two new films: “Page Eight” and “The Song of Lunch.”

In a special video interview from the PBS Annual Meeting, Eaton, a 2011 TIME “100 Most Influential People in the World” honoree and PBS “Be More” Award winner, previews these films and introduces this summer’s “Zen,” Mastepriece Mystery's newest detective, played by Rufus Sewell (Masterpiece “Middlemarch) premiering Sundays, July 17-31, 2011.

From PBS

Spy-thriller “Page Eight,” by Oscar-nominee David Hare (The Reader, The Hours), features Nighy as Johnny Worricker, an MI-5 officer who becomes wrapped up in an elaborate conspiracy after the death of his best friend, Benedict Baron (Gambon).

The film also stars Weisz as Johnny’s neighbor and Ralph Fiennes and Judy Davis and premieres this fall on Masterpiece Contemporary.

Also, this fall on Contemporary, Rickman and Thompson star in “The Song of Lunch,” based on Christopher Reid’s acclaimed narrative poem, about a book editor and his former lover who reconnect 15 years after their original affair.

Masterpiece Mystery! favorites Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox are back as Inspector Lewis and DS Hathaway in four new Oxford University-based whodunits, which have them solving cases at an all-female college, investigating the poisoning of a bishop, looking into a clinical trial and examining a sinister blackmail plot, but will their personal lives wrap up as neatly as their cases?

“Inspector Lewis, Series IV” airs Sundays, September 4, 18 and 25 and October 9, 2011, 9:00-10:30 p.m. ET.

“Inspector Lewis, Series IV” is a coproduction of ITV Studios and MASTERPIECE. “Page Eight” is a Carnival/MASTERPIECE coproduction. “The Song of Lunch” is a coproduction of the BBC and MASTERPIECE.

www.pbs.org/masterpiece.

Masterpiece on PBS is celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2011, is presented by WGBH Boston.