Toronto-based Cream Productions’ Relative Secrets with Jane Seymour marks the first unscripted series for AMC Networks-owned streamer Acorn TV, which offers mysteries, dramas, comedies and documentaries.

The 4 x 42-minute series, which premieres simultaneously on BBC America today (June 2), was first announced in September 2024. Each episode follows an American family diving into the genealogy of their past and uncovering both a British connection and a dark past within.

According to Cream senior production executive John Ealer, the pitch for the series came about as a way to build on the prodco’s previous true-crime projects such as Investigation Discovery’s standalone documentary The Texas Cheerleader Murder Plot and the Oxygen/Investigation series Fear Thy Neighbour.

“We started fooling around with the idea of, ‘how can we fuse this reliable genre of true crime with another reliable genre,'” Ealer tells Playback Daily. “How could we add a genealogy roadshow angle to true-crime?”

Conversations with AMC first began in late 2023, with the series initially focusing on the episode’s subjects finding killers in their family history, like “the Jesse James and Jack the Rippers.” The series quickly morphed into the vérité and investigative series it is today, with Ealer giving AMC “full marks” for helping them build out that angle of the series.

From there, AMC brought on British actor Seymour (pictured), thanks to her starring role in Acorn TV’s Irish dramedy Harry Wild. Cream reached out to the other constant in the series, archaeologist Natasha Billson, after seeing her role on The Great British Dig.

“In an industry with a high level of … uncertainty, talent attachments like Jane Seymour offer a security blanket of marketable certainty that whatever happens in six weeks, six months, or six years, an outlet will have a thumbnail viewers will be interested in clicking on,” says Ealer.

For other producers looking to get their investigative series greenlit, there is of course no magic bullet, he says, but the key may be in a series focused on finding value. That means “people finding value about themselves or finding value in an object. Whether it’s an antique show, whether it’s genealogy or whether it’s crime, we are all on this search for value.”

Given the plethora of true crime around the world, Ealer says that producers and networks are stuck choosing between what is predictable and reliable, versus breaking the mold.

“I think the more we as producers can be seen by our network and broadcast partners as the people who can help navigate those tectonic forces [of predictability and originality],” says Ealer, “the more successful we’ll be.”

Image courtesy of Cream Productions