Box clever in TV’s new golden age

The clocks have gone back and the nights are drawing in ... What better to do than stock up on drinks and snacks and coorie in to catch up on the best box sets? After our special feature in yesterday’s Herald Magazine, welcome to part two of our guide to

Superior Anglo-French crime drama THERE are some, this writer among them, who think this Anglo-French crime series superior to the one it’s based on, SwedishDanish co-production The Bridge. The Tunnel certainly has a more watchable co-lead in wayward British policeman Karl Roebuck (Stephen Dillane from Game Of Thrones) and as his French counterpart Elise Wassermann, Clemence Poesy more than holds her own against The Bridge’s Saga Noren (Sofia Helin). The coastal settings – depressed communities in and around Kent and Calais – add to the flavour but when it comes to the increasingly Byzantine plots there’s little to choose between them.

In another change from The Bridge, Elise Wassermann drives a Porsche 944 instead of a Porsche 911.

Three series, 24 episodes, 1080 minutes. Available on DVD and to stream on Amazon Prime. Political drama BACK at the beginning of last year there was a news story that people were bingeing on Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing in order to cope with the Donald Trump presidency. “A show about a selfless, intelligent man who becomes president,” observed Sara Morrison, a staff writer at Vocativ, “maybe – just maybe! – people are looking for a bit of escapism from the world we have now.” It’s been 12 years since the end of The West Wing – centred on Michael Sheen’s Democrat president Jed Bartlet – and the culture it portrays seems increasingly improbable. But if you’re looking for a fantasy of a sane (if very white male) politics, it lives on here.

The longest “walk and talk” the show ever featured was three minutes long and involved around 500 extras.

Seven series, 156 episodes, four days 20 hours, available on DVD. Australian political thriller THIS whip-smart Aussie thriller centres on the activities of two brothers – investigative journalist Ned Banks (Dan Spielman) and his autistic hacker brother Jesse (Ashley Zukerman) – but then pans out to take in a sprawling political conspiracy that reaches from the brothers’ Canberra stomping ground to the Outback and beyond. Jesse and Ned are soon joined in their investigation by Adele Perovic as Australian-Iranian Hani – like Jesse a blacklisted hacker with a police record – and the plot takes in an array of domestic concerns, such as the treatment of the Aboriginal people. But it’s the interplay of the three principals that makes it so gripping.

California-born Zukerman also stars in Netflix political drama Designated Survivor.

Two series, 12 episodes, 672 minutes. Available on DVD and to stream on

Netflix. Bloody Italian crime series ADAPTED from the 2008 big-screen hit which was in turn adapted from Roberto Saviano’s 2006 non-fiction book about the Camorra, the Naples Mafia, this series focuses on the Savastano clan as they fight for primacy in the city. It’s as lurid and blood-splattered as you’d expect and, given the continent-spanning nature of organised crime in the 21st century, not all the action takes place in Naples. But the characterisation keeps it grounded in reality and it never loses the sense of the the mean streets and housing estates of Naples.

So incensed were the Camorra by his book that anti-Mafia campaigner Saviano still lives under 24-hour police protection.

Three series, 36 episodes, 1548 minutes. Available on DVD and to stream on Amazon Prime. Melodramatic motorcycle-gang drama DUBBED, however unlikely, as Hamlet on Harleys, this tells the story of a violent familyfrom-hell/outlaw gang in California, which spends its time running drugs and guns. It stars Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Ron Perlman and Glasgow’s scarfaced Tommy Flanagan who uses his own gravelly accent throughout, presumably to confuse American viewers. Hunnam plays Jackson Teller, who seizes control of the club from his stepfather, egged on by his ambitious mother, a frighteningly good Sagal – hence the thematic Shakespeare comparisons. Newcastle-born Hunnam started his TV career in children’s show Byker Grove.

Seven series, 92 episodes, 6600 minutes, available on Amazon Prime and DVD. A masterclass in criminology VIOLA Davis stars as Annalise Keating, a law professor and criminal defence lawyer extraordinaire. She drafts in five students to help with her caseload and the quintet soon find themselves embroiled in a complex murder plot. But if there is one thing Keating knows, it is how to get away with murder. Although only if everyone listens and does exactly what she says. Which they don’t, naturally. And that is when things get dark and twisty.

Showrunner Pete Nowalk would love to have Meryl Streep as a guest star.

Four series, 60 episodes, approx. 2,580