Richard Armitage boards Epix's 'Berlin Station'

Just like its streaming peers, Epix wants to enter the original content game. But following suit with its big screen competition, it's gunning for the spy genre to do so. Nabbing an up-and-coming star of recent blockbuster fame, The Hobbit actor Ricahrd Armitage undertakes their Berlin Station.

The new 10-part drama, as Deadline reports, is a contemporary program centered on Daniel Meyer (Armitage), a newly anointed case officer who arrives at the CIA foreign station in Berlin to uncover who served leaked supplied information to a whistleblower. He joins Rhys Ifans and Richard Jenkins in the cast. Ifans entered as Case Officer Hector DeJean, a charming-but-dogged agent who works for Jenkins' Chief Steven Frost.

Also recently cast in the limited series is Michelle Forbes, of The Killing, as Valerie Edwards, an forthright administrator serving as a Berlin Station Section Head. Scheduling has production beginning this fall, with a premiere planned for the following year. Epix has a few more original shows on the docket, but this serves as their first original drama. If they have what it takes to make an impact is left undetermined.

Armitage, though he may be seen more on the big-screen of late, is acquainted with the tube. He was recently seen in this last season of Hannibal, and previously worked on Strike Back, MI-5, The Vicar of Dibley and Robin Hood, just to name a few. Beyond his Hobbit films, he was also recently seen in last summer's Into the Storm, and can be seen in Pilgrimage, Urban & the Shed Crew, Sleepwalker and Brain on Fire within this year or the next.

Forbes, likewise, finds herself predominately on the box set with roles in Powers, Orphan Black and The Returned, but can next be seen in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay- Part 2.

Image courtesy of INFphoto.com