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BBC America?

MAGIC: The fairy-tale noir Pushing Daisies is the show to watch this fall.

The networks’ fall TV season is brimming with faces and names of British actors who are unknown here to all but the staunchest BBC America, HBO, and PBS addicts. Kevin McKidd, who was the haunted Lucius Vorenus in HBO’s Rome, gets his own NBC drama series, Journeyman, in which he plays a time-traveling San Francisco newspaper reporter. McKidd’s Rome cast mate Polly Walker (sex-blood-and-power-mad Atia) co-stars in CBS’s soap Cane, playing a devious sugar-cane heiress with a languid drawl straight out of Tennessee Williams. Damian Lewis, who played Soames Forsyte in the Masterpiece Theatre remake of The Forsyte Saga, stars in NBC’s drama series Life. Lewis is aces as an LA cop who was framed for murder and then exonerated and is now back on the force.

British stage actress Anna Friel is a freckle-faced, all-American Sleeping Beauty on ABC’s wondrous fable Pushing Daisies. CBS’s musical-noir series Viva Laughlin, which stars Brit Lloyd Owen (Monarch of the Glen) and Aussie Hugh Jackman as rival American casino owners, is a (regrettably unnecessary) remake of BBC America’s cheeky 2005 mini-series Viva Blackpool. British actress Michelle Ryan (of EastEnders and the BBCA mini-series Jekyll) takes the coveted role of Jaime Sommers in NBC’s dark and edgy remake Bionic Woman, and, yes, Jaime is still a Yank. And let’s not forget the Brits playing Americans on current series, such as Jason Isaacs on Showtime’s Brotherhood, Dominic West on HBO’s The Wire, and Rose Byrne on FX’s Damages.