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ZeroZeroZero (Sky/ NOW TV)

In the third episode of this stunning drug-smuggling drama, Don Minu, the elderly but ruthless boss of bosses in Calabria, Italy, summons his errant grandson Stefano for a meeting. Stefano has stepped out of line. This was unwise. The don didn’t get where he is today by not executing blood relatives. The tension is expertly ratcheted up, and when the 20-minute sequence finally reaches its climax, even though we’ve been expecting something very, very bad to happen, it’s still genuinely shocking.

ZeroZeroZero – apparently that’s what the purest cocaine is nicknamed – is the story of the passage of a huge shipment of the drug from Mexico to Italy via Senegal, the Sahara desert and Morocco. We focus on three groups of characters. There are the mobsters buying the consignment. Don Minu’s continued supremacy depends on the cocaine’s safe arrival. Then there are the Mexican gangsters selling it. Their new enforcers are a group of corrupt special forces soldiers. Finally, there are the American shipping family transporting the drugs – siblings Emma and Chris Lynwood (Andrea Riseborough and Dane DeHaan, right).

Great TV is often described as ‘cinematic’. It’s meant as a compliment but the underlying assumption is that television is the big screen’s poor cousin. The term doesn’t apply here because, frankly, this transcends most cinema.