The Gold
Six-part BBC dramatisation of the sensational 1983 Brink’s-Mat robbery which saw £26 million worth of gold bullion stolen from a security depot near Heathrow Airport. Hugh Bonneville plays Flying Squad detective DCI Brian Boyce, the man charged with catching the thieves. Jack Lowden, Scottish star of Dunkirk and Slow Horses, is Kenneth Noye, who helped dispose of the gold, served eight years for his trouble, and was later imprisoned for murder. Charlotte Spencer, Tom Cullen and Emun Elliot also feature.
February 12, BBC One
The Consultant
Billed as “a twisted, comedic-thriller”, The Consultant stars Christoph Waltz (below) as management consultant Regus Patoff who is hired to improve working practices at an app-based gaming company called CompWare. Uh-oh. Pretty soon the employees find themselves facing some rather unusual demands and challenges. The series springs from the brain of British scriptwriter Tony Basgallop, creator of Apple TV hit Servant. Nat Wolff, Brittany O’Grady and Aimee Carrero also star.
February 24, Amazon Prime
Succession
Season three of Jesse Armstrong’s satirical romp through the world of the ultra-rich Roy ended on something of a cliff-hanger with Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) effectively having been disinherited by domineering father Logan (Brian Cox). Will Mathew Macfadyen’s unctuous Tom Wambsgans become the chosen one? Unlikely, but you never know. Joining the cast for season four are Adam Godley, Annabeth Gish, Eili Harboe and Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson.
March 27, Sky Atlantic/NOW
The Law According To Lidia Poët
A colourful six-part crime series based on the real-life story of Lidia Poet, who fought to become the first woman admitted to the Italian bar after initially being, well, barred from doing so. The setting is Turin in the early 1880s and Lidia (Matilda De Angelis, below) takes a job at her brother’s law firm as she fights the ruling which has gone against her. Of course her natural talent for sniffing out the truth of a case make her an excellent amateur sleuth. She aided and abetted by a well-connected journalist who provides an entrée to the Turin underworld.
February 15, Netflix
Daisy Jones & The Six
A faux-documentary following the rise and fall of a 1970s rock band from LA’s fabled Laurel Canyon scene, this 10-part mini-series is adapted from the 2019 novel of the same name by prolific American author Taylor Jenkins Reid. And yes, there is a lot of Fleetwood Mac in there. Riley Keough (below, centre), daughter of the late Lisa-Marie Presley and grand-daughter of Elvis Presley, plays Daisy Jones, which seems like appropriate casting. Joining her are Camila Morrone, Brazilian singer-songwriter Nabiyah Be and the English trio of Sam Claflin, Suki Waterhouse and Josh Whitehouse.
March 3, Prime Video
The Night Agent
Based on Matthew Quirk’s 2019 bestseller, this fast-paced political conspiracy thriller pitches lowly FBI agent Peter Sutherland (Hillbilly Elegy lead Gabriel Basso) into a race against time to find a high-level Russian mole in the White House. Sutherland is posted to the graveyard shift in the White House situation room and told to man a phone that never rings – until one night it does and a panicked voice on the other says: “Tell them it’s happening.” Luciane Buchanan is Rose Larkin, the baffled young woman making the call after assassins have come for her aunt and uncle. Think 24 meets No Way Out, the 1987 Gene Hackman-Kevin Costner thriller. You’re already hooked, aren’t you?
March 23, Netflix
Great Expectations
A co-production between the BBC and US channel FX, this adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic is by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight and stars Olivia Colman as Miss Havisham. Dunkirk star Fionn Whitehead is Pip while the role of Estella goes to Shalom Brune-Franklin – aka DC Chloe Bishop from Line Of Duty. Though there are plenty of august antecedents – among them David Lean’s iconic 1946 film version and Sarah Phelps’s 2011 BBC adaptation, which starred Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham and Ray Winstone as Magwitch – it’s a novel that’s pretty hard to mess up. In other words, this should be excellent. No firm transmission date yet, but let’s just say it’s expected shortly after the clocks go forward.
Spring, BBC One
Agent Elvis
Matthew McConaughey voicing an animated Elvis Presley whose day job is the King of Rock and Roll but who is also an undercover spy working for a secret government agency called TCB? Hell, yeah. That the showrunner for this jumbo hot dog-sized portion of weird is Archer writer Mike Arnold just makes it even better. Oh, and one of the co-creators is a certain Priscilla Presley. It falls under the adult animation category, though, so it certainly isn’t one for the kids.
March, Netflix
Liaison
Vincent Cassell and Eva Green star in this Apple Original, an Anglo-French drama which pitches two spies and former lovers – guess who! – in a battle of wits against hackers threatening the UK with a massive cyberattack that may flood the city and see planes drop from the skies. Apple are calling it “a high-stakes, contemporary thriller exploring how the mistakes of our past have the potential to destroy our future.” Peter Mullan co-stars, it’s created by former Spiral writer Virginie Brac and it’s executive produced by Gub Neal, the man who brought us Cracker and The Fall.
February 24, Apple TV
Transatlantic
Created by Berlin-based American Anna Winger, the brain behind Deutschland 83 and its sequels as well as the Yiddish language hit Unorthodox, this Second World War drama is based on the real-life exploits of the Emergency Rescue Committee. Formed in Marseilles in 1940 to provide a means of escape for those in danger from the Nazi-supporting Vichy regime, it helped over 2000 people flee France, mostly for the United States. Gillian Fry plays Mary Jane Gold, the Paris-based American heiress who, along with American journalist Varian Fry (Cory Michael Smith) set up and managed the escape routes through Spain and North Africa. Lucas Englander (below left), Corey Stoll, Gregory Montel and Ralph Amoussou also star.
April 7, Netflix
True Detective: Night Country
Nine years on from the first season of the awesome crime anthology series – and what a double act Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey turned out to be – True Detective returns and this time it pitches female detectives Liz Danvers and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) into a snow-bound mystery in a state far from the swampy Louisiana of series one. Which state? Alaska, home to an Arctic research station whose entire complement of eight male scientists has disappeared. Danvers is played by none other than Jodie foster while the role of Navarro goes to Kali Reis, a former world champion boxer in middleweight and light welterweight. Not a pair to be messed with, in other words. Rounding out the all-star cast are Christopher Eccleston, Fiona Shaw and the always excellent John Hawkes.
No release date yet, but it’s coming in 2023 and it featured on an HBO preview video released late last year
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here