Messiah is a British television drama series, broadcast on the BBC One network and produced in-house by BBC Northern Ireland, although the series itself is set in England. Made up of a series of occasional serials, the first, with two parts subtitled The First Killings & The Reckoning, was broadcast in 2001. It has been followed by Messiah 2: Vengeance is Mine (2003), Messiah III: The Promise (2004), Messiah IV: The Harrowing (2005) and most recently Messiah V: The Rapture (2008). The original production was based on a novel by Boris Starling: the subsequent instalments have been written directly for television. Starling has a cameo as a murder victim's corpse in the first serial. A crime series, it follows the investigations of DCI Red Metcalfe, who often investigates particularly gruesome murders. Metcalfe is played by Scottish actor Ken Stott, and the other main regulars in the series are Kate Beauchamp (Frances Grey), Duncan Warren (Neil Dudgeon) and Metcalfe's wife Susan (Michelle Forbes). The deafness of Forbes' character necessitated both her and Stott learning British Sign Language for their characters' frequent exchanges. Cast DCI Red Metcalfe (Ken Stott, Series 1–4) DCI Joseph Walker (Marc Warren, Series 5) DCI Charlie McIntyre (Alun Armstrong, Series 2) DCS Michael Emerson (Art Malik, Series 1–2) DI Duncan Warren (Neil Dudgeon, Series 1–4) DI David Wilby (Vincent Regan, Series 2) DI Jack Price (Hugo Speer, Series 4) DS Kate Beauchamp (Frances Grey, Series 1–3) DS Vickie Clarke (Maxine Peake, Series 4) DS Jez Clifton (Jamie Draven, Series 1) DS Terry Hedges (Daniel Ryan, Series 5) DS Mel Palmer (Marsha Thomason, Series 5) Eric Metcalfe (Kieran O'Brien, Series 1–2) Susan Metcalfe (Michelle Forbes, Series 1–3) Production Messiah I is the only series to be directly adapted from the novel, and deals with a serial killer who sets out to commit twelve murders in the same vein as the Apostles. The screenplay was written by Lizzie Mickery, who also wrote Messiah II and Messiah III. The series was broadcast over a May bank holiday weekend in 2001, on 26 (Saturday) and 27 (Sunday) May respectively. The series does have some major differences to the novel it was adapted from. For example; the final scenes in the novel take place at Easter 1999, traditionally the time when Judas Iscariot hanged himself. However, the events of the final scenes in the series take place on New Year's Eve 2000. In