Lyndhurst and Meldrew back on BBC

Lyndhurst as a doctor who just can't stay out of trouble

Popular TV actor Nicholas Lyndhurst and grumpy pensioner Victor Meldrew are returning to BBC One as part of the autumn season.

Only Fools and Horses star Lyndhurst plays a hapless doctor caught up in a gangland robbery in a new drama series, provisionally-titled Thin Ice.

Victor lives to have just one more gripe

Richard Wilson resumes his role as Meldrew in One Foot in the Grave for the last time.

Eleven new dramas were unveiled in all - part of a £189 million season of programmes on BBC One.

0ther highlights include a major new series with David Attenborough, a comedy show featuring Robert Lindsay and Zoe Wannamaker, and the return of The Royle Family.

Quality

BBC One Controller Peter Salmon said: "This season is about boldness and about quality.

Care takes a ground-breaking look at the painful issue of child abuse

"Genuine ambition is evident in every genre - whether it be uncompromising drama, landmark factual pieces or new comedy.

"The new licence fee settlement has meant that we can bridge the huge investment gap between BBC One and its rivals and this season shows some of the proof with an extra £10 million being spent on drama."

Part of the budget has gone on Care - a fictional tale of a man who was abused as a child and whose cries for help went unheeded.

Written by Ballykissangel creator Kieran Prendiville, it is directed by Antonia Bird, who worked with Robert Carlyle in the films Face and Ravenous.

Dramas

Other dramas include The Sins, starring Pete Postlethwaite as a getaway driver determined to go straight, and adaptations of Nancy Mitford's novel Love In A Cold Climate and Kinsley Amis's Take A Girl Like You, featuring Rupert Graves and Hugh Bonneville.

Kingsley Amis' Take a Girl Like You introduces hot young talent Sienna Guillory

Sir David Attenborough looks at the future of the Earth in State of the Planet, while Professor Robert Winston studies the body's capacity for self-repair and reinvention in Superhuman.

The Royle Family welcome a new addition to the clan, following the birth of Denise's first child, but it's the end for poor old Victor, killed by a hit and run driver in the last episode of One Foot in the Grave.

Lindsay and Wannamaker team up for My Family - a new comedy series written by Fred Barron, whose impressive list of credits includes American favourites Seinfeld and The Larry Sanders Show.

Sir David Attenborough returns to take a definitive and unnerving look at the state of the planet

But Mr Salmon stressed that current affairs and arts programmes were not going to be marginalised or shunted off to BBC Two.

"There has been a lot of speculation recently about the future direction of BBC One and it seems to have become received wisdom that it is set to become a channel where entertainment will rule peak-time and factual programmes will migrate to BBC Two," he said.

"That is simply not true, and this season will be an eloquent rebuttal to those who are under that misapprehension.

"Genres like science, news, current affairs and natural history will always find a home on BBC One."