Another irresistible exclusive DVD release of Last of the Summer Wine is coming this summer to BBC America Shop and BBC Canada Shop. The DVD includes the seven regular episodes of Season 16 plus the special “Welcome to Earth,” in which something funny (and perhaps even extraterrestrial) is happening at the local stone circle. What visitors from another world would make of the denizens of this remote pocket of Yorkshire is anyone’s guess. We’ve grown so accustomed to their penchant for inconvenient fancies and equipment cobbled together from found objects. Last of the Summer Wine: Vintage 1993 can be pre-ordered now for July 24^th delivery.

It seems that no one can get enough of Scandinavian detectives these days, so we’re glad to hear that Kenneth Branagh will soon return for a third season of Wallander, the role that earned him last year’s Best Actor BAFTA Award. The feature-length films include The Dogs of Riga and Before the Frost, based on Henning Mankell novels, and an original mystery, An Event in Autumn. This season’s cast also features Lindsay Duncan (The Rise and Fall of Margaret Thatcher), Saskia Reeves (Luther), Donald Sumpter (Game of Thrones) and Jeany Spark (Tess of the D’Urbervilles) as Kurt’s daughter, Linda. Masterpiece has posted premiere dates for Wallander on September 9th, 16th and 23rd, and the DVD release will become available after the season run.

Viewer Alert:  The much anticipated second season of Sherlock films starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman will premiere on Masterpiece this Sunday, May 6th, with “A Scandal in Belgravia.” Lara Pulver is not to be missed as “the woman” Irene Adler.

We’ve had a number of queries over the years about the 1980 Thames Television version of Love in a Cold Climate, based on Nancy Mitford’s postwar novels, so we’re glad to hear that it is coming to DVD in June. Bringing the chronicles of an extended family of aristocrats to life is a distinguish cast that includes Judi Dench, her late husband, Michael Williams (Elizabeth R, A Fine Romance), Michael Aldridge (Last of the Summer Wine, 1986-90), Vivian Pickles (Elizabeth R, Isadora [Ken Russell at the BBC]) and Anthony Head, seen here in the first stages of his television career.

Viewer Alert:  The third season of The Thick of It, starring Peter Capaldi, premieres Saturday night, April 28, at midnight ET. This is the British original that is the basis for HBO’s new series Veep, whose scripts are also written by Thick of It writer-producer Armando Iannucci, the man who brought us I’m Alan Partridge and Knowing Me Knowing You. The Canadian premiere has not yet been announced.

Birdsong premieres on Masterpiece this Sunday, April 22^nd, at 9pm ET in a two-part adaptation of the Sebastian Faulks novel of illicit love and war. It stars Eddie Redmayne (Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Glorious 39, The Pillars of the Earth) as Stephen, who falls in love with Isabelle (Clemence Poesy – Harry Potter films), the unhappy second wife of an industrialist, during an extended stay as a houseguest in their home. Redmayne’s work in My Week with Marilyn earned him a BAFTA nomination for Newcomer of the Year, and he will be seen as Marius in the much-anticipated film version of Les Miserables coming this Christmas. The cast also includes Matthew Goode (He Knew He Was Right, Brideshead Revisited – 2008) and Richard Madden (Game of Thrones). The DVD will be available this Tuesday, April 25^th.

Earth Day: This Sunday is Earth Day, and BBC America is marking Earth Day weekend with a round-the-clock marathon of Planet Earth, the first US airing of the popular, uncut BBC version narrated by David Attenborough. The marathon begins Saturday morning at 6am ET, and finishes on Sunday 9pm ET with The Making of Planet Earth.

Discovery will mark Earth Day with a marathon of Frozen Planet building up to the 8pm ET premiere of “On Thin Ice,” a look at the fragile state of life at the Poles presented by David Attenborough.

Frozen Planet Augmented Reality is now running in all three malls through Sunday, April 22nd:

Short Hills Mall,1200 Morris Turnpike, Short Hills, NJ

Woodfield Mall, 5 Woodfield Mall, Schaumburg, IL

Sunvalley Mall,1 Sun Valley Mall #228, Concord, CA

We’ve been watching live streaming of people stepping into their own Frozen Planet adventures all day, and luckily there are still three days to catch this phenomenon for real if you live in the greater New York, Chicago or San Francisco areas. Since the streaming is live in real time, the best way to share your own experience with family and friends is to give them a call or text shortly before you step onto the iceberg. Bring your camera to capture your own session permanently. We’ve had better luck taking pictures of the screen pictures from a bit of distance, as shown here. The color fidelity tends to suffer in close-up shots of the full screen.

Here’s a chance for Americans and Canadians to win a copy of the new DVD release of Frozen Planet, but you must act now because the contest ends tonight at 8pm ET! To enter, just repin on Pinterest.

Attention Shoppers: If you live in the New York, Chicago or San Francisco areas, you can interact with four of the Frozen Planet animal stars – penguins, seals, polar bears, and orcas –through the magic of Augmented Reality from Appshaker. Augmented Reality has to be seen to be believed, but the basic idea is that you can put yourself into a 3D scene and view yourself with the animals on a screen. The event starts tomorrow, April 19^th, and runs through Sunday, April 22nnd, at the following shopping malls:

Short Hills Mall,1200 Morris Turnpike, Short Hills, NJ

Woodfield Mall, 5 Woodfield Mall, Schaumburg, IL

Sunvalley Mall,1 Sun Valley Mall #228, Concord, CA

There will also be live streaming so that you can share the excitement with families and friends around the world.

The Titanic miniseries that aired on ABC this past weekend will be available on DVD next Tuesday, April 24^th. In populating the drama, Julian Fellowes (Downton Abbey, Gosford Park) admitted to Radio Times that he had mixed fictional archetypes amid historical people. “What I absolutely hope is that the dramatic treatment of the real people is indistinguishable from the dramatic treatment of the fictional ones. I would hope that after watching someone who’s interested would Google the whole thing and be surprised to find out which were fictional and which were not.”  Extras include: Making-of Featurette, Behind-the-Production Featurette, “The Curse of the Titanic Sisters” Documentary and Photo Gallery.

Among the great classic Titanic films is Britain’s A Night to Remember (1958), which was given the Criterion Collection treatment for DVD release last month. While the 50-year-old model work will inevitably suffer from DVD resolution, the enormous cast, including Kenneth More (The Forsyte Saga), David McCallum (NCIS) and Honor Blackman (Goldfinger), is superb. If the uncredited actors listed in IMDB is to be believed, you should look for Sean Connery among the deck hands, and for Desmond Llewelyn (who played Q in 17 Bond films) at the steerage gate.

Shopper Alert: If you’ve been following Frozen Planet on Discovery, today is the day when you can own the complete, unedited BBC original series narrated by David Attenborough!

We released Madame Bovary some years ago as the VHS era was on the wane, but DVD had not fully caught on in the market. It stars Frances O’Connor (following up her lead in Madame Bovary, 1999) in the iconic title role, the convent-educated farm girl who marries early and discovers that life is not at all what she had been led to expect from novels. Hugh Bonneville (Madame Bovary) plays the bewildered Monsieur Bovary, tragically unequal to his wife’s ambitions in every way. More interesting men – played by Hugh Dancy (Daniel Deronda, Elizabeth I) and Greg Wise (Cranford) – drift in and out of her life, but Emma Bovary remains unfulfilled. The cast also includes Eileen Atkins (Upstairs Downstairs -2010, Madame Bovary) and Trevor Peacock (The Vicar of Dibley).

Broadcast Alerts:

Downton Abbey screenwriter Julian Fellowes penned a much-anticipated four-part Titanic miniseries, which airs on ABC this weekend. It stars Linus Roache (Law & Order, Van Gogh) Geraldine Somerville (Daphne), Toby Jones (Christopher and His Kind, The Old Curiosity Shop), Lyndsey Marshal (Being Human [S2], Garrow’s Law), Celia Imrie (Daniel Deronda), Stephen Campbell Moore (Wallis & Edward, He Knew He Was Right), Steven Waddington (The Tudors), James Wilby (Island at War), David Calder (Bramwell) and Timothy West (Bleak House – 2005).  Doctor Who fans should keep their eyes peeled for Jenna-Louise Coleman (the Doctor’s next companion) in the role of Annie, who is placed in the unenviable role of settling squabbles among the personal servants of the First Class passengers. Parts One-Three will air on Saturday, April 14 at 8-11 pm ET, and Part Four on Sunday, April 15 at 9-10 pm ET, which marks the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking.

Masterpiece will premiere the new BBC adaptation of The Mystery of Edwin Drood on Sunday, April 15, at 9-11 pm. In an earlier blog, we identified the cathedral town in which the story is set as Rochester, Kent. While many scholars believe Dickens was inspired by Rochester Cathedral, and this production was filmed there, the town in the novel is called Cloisterham.

PHOTO CREDIT: © 2010 Laurence Cendrowicz

Two years ago, we blogged about The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, based on the Regency-era diaries of a remarkable woman who inherited the estate and stately home of Shibden Hall in 1826. The diaries first saw the light of day in 1988 under the title I Know My Own Heart, which has been called “a veritable Rosetta Stone of lesbian life in the early nineteenth century.”

The inheritance placed Miss Lister in a position comparable to that of Mr. Darcy, and as a single woman in possession of a good fortune, she found herself in want of a wife.  But the role of Miss Lister allows Maxine Peake (Little Dorrit) to play other Austen archetypes as well. Like Emma, she selects a protégé who is destined to disappoint. Like Marianne Dashwood, she suffers when her one true passion Mariana (Anna Madeley – Sense and Sensibility) marries for money – to a middle-aged man with 6,000 a year. Yet Anne is as ruthlessly seductive as Willoughby or Wickham, and every bit as arrogant as Mr. Darcy, not to mention as snobbish as Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Miss Lister’s frankness about herself and others gives this Regency drama a very modern feel. We’ve received many queries about The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister since its BBC premiere in 2010, and we’re happy to announce that work is underway to bring the DVD to North America this summer.

Frozen Planet continues on Discovery Sundays at 8pm ET: This week’s episode is a fascinating look at the thrills and hardships involved in making of this landmark series.

Masterpiece’s Charles Dickens bicentennial season begins this Sunday, April 1^st, with the BBC’s latest version of Great Expectations (starring Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham). Following on April 15^th is an adaptation of Dicken’s last (and unfinished) novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. It stars Matthew Rhys (The Lost World – 2001) as John Jasper, who to the world appears to be the respectable choir master of Rochester Cathedral in Kent, England.  But Jasper has two dark secrets that are becoming less and less manageable: an obsessive desire for his nephew’s fiancée, Rosa Bud (Tamzin Merchant – The Tudors), and an addiction to laudanum.

In the title role of John’s nephew Edwin Drood is Freddie Fox (Any Human Heart), who hails from the Fox acting dynasty: son of Edward Fox and Joanna David, brother of Emilia Fox and cousin of Laurence Fox (Inspector Lewis). Also appearing are Rory Kinnear (Cranford), Julia McKenzie (Cranford, Miss Marple) and Alun Armstrong (New Tricks).

Watch the stars come out for Sport Relief: Earlier this Sunday, BBC America is giving us a window into the phenomenon that is Sport Relief, beginning at 7am ET with This is Sport Relief, hosted by Stephen Fry. A full program of Sport Relief specials will lead up to Sport Relief Goes Global from 12:30 – 5 PM ET. We’re especially looking forward to the two Sport Relief Spoofs (10am ET), in which the cream of British talent will send up Mamma Mia, Downton Abbey and Upstairs Downstairs.

Frozen Planet continues on Discovery Sundays at 8pm ET: This week’s episode is the most frozen of all: Winter. One of the many high points is the glimpse of tiny newborn polar bear cubs.