What to watch
After BBC One’s Undercover, which starred Sophie Okonedo and Adrian Lester and aired last year, comes this new six-part drama about a crusading lawyer with a taste for overturning miscarriages of justice. Emma Banville is played by Helen Mccrory, and the case that falls into her lap is satisfyingly chewy and ethically complex: a man is accused of killing a schoolgirl, his wife has always maintained his innocence. The case brings Banville into conflict with the shadowy forces of the establishment, led by recent Bafta-winner Wunmi Mosaku’s pugilistic police officer and with Michael Gambon and Big Little Lies’ Robin Weigert pulling the strings behind the scenes.
The striking credits promise a drama wrestling with the post-truth age, and although this feels like overreaching on the basis of this first episode, there’s still much to enjoy – not least Mccrory, who relishes the character. Created by Homeland and 24 writer Patrick Harbinson, Fearless does share a little of those series’ harum-scarum plotting and occasionally requires a similar suspension of disbelief, but it builds paranoia and tension very effectively. A confident, absorbing first chapter. Gabriel Tate