Why is there such a buzz about..?

When the first season of this fastmoving, gritty crime drama appeared in 2017, some critics dismissed it as a wannabe Breaking Bad, but viewers loved it, audiences kept growing and it won awards. Now there are suggestions that - whisper it - it might actually be better than Breaking Bad.

Financial adviser Marty Byrde

(Jason Bateman) has been forced to move his family from Chicago to the Ozarks, a popular tourist destination in Missouri, and start laundering money for a ruthless Mexican drug cartel. Understandably, this puts something of a strain on his already rocky relationship with his unfaithful wife Wendy (Laura Linney, right, with Bateman). And as well as the cartel, they also have to deal with the equally terrifying local crime outfits.

So what makes Ozark so different to other crime series? It has a very distinctive look with a blue-grey colour palette, sharp shadows and visually striking locations in an area of outstanding natural beauty. And it bucks the current trend for brooding, contemplative crime dramas. A single episode can have more incidents than an entire series of other shows.

At the start of the third season, which fans agree is the best yet, a vicious cartel war is heating up in Mexico. Wendy, who is taking to crime like a duck to water, sees the crisis as an opportunity for expansion. But Marty’s not convinced that strengthening ties to homicidal gangsters is necessarily the best path to security and peace of mind. Oh, and 1980s soft rock favourites REO Speedwagon are involved. The finale will leave you desperate for Season Four.