Nobody review - Bob Odenkirk reinvents himself as all-action dynamo

★★★★ NOBODY Bob Odenkirk reinvents himself as all-action dynamo

Blood-splattered thriller keeps it taut, tense and tight

Fans of Bob Odenkirk’s work in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul will be delighted to see him taking centre stage in Ilya Naishuller’s thriller, but perhaps bamboozled at the spectacle of Odenkirk taking the plunge into the blood-splattered territory previously the preserve of John Wick and Liam Neeson’s Bryan Taken Mills.

The Beast Must Die, Britbox review - a crime story which plumbs psychological depths

★★★★ THE BEAST MUST DIE, BRITBOX Jared Harris stars in Isle of Wight-based mystery

Jared Harris seizes centre stage in Isle of Wight-based mystery

They all laughed when the streaming service Britbox declared that it wanted to become a sort of UK-orientated Netflix, because so far it’s been mostly a back catalogue operation which plunders the BBC and ITV archives. You really want to pay a subscription to watch Are You Being Served? and Rosemary and Thyme?

Before We Die, Channel 4 review - Lesley Sharp excels as a detective in crisis

★★★★ BEFORE WE DIE, CHANNEL 4 Lesley Sharp excels as a detective in crisis

The personal and the professional collide in brutal crime-gang drama

Perhaps inspired by its ever-intriguing Walter Presents strand, Channel 4’s new thriller Before We Die is based on a Swedish original called Innan vi dör (“before we die” in Swedish).

Ferry review - the making of a Dutch gangster

Netflix capitalises on trend of 'origin stories' to promote one of its own TV series

Success for the Belgian-Dutch crime series Undercover has led Netflix to produce an origin story for the show’s drug lord character Ferry Bouman (Frank Lammers). While this may be a dream come true for a portion of the show’s diehard fans, this formulaic movie is stalling, predictable and riddled with every gangster cliché in the book.

Line of Duty, Series 6, Episode 6, BBC One review - the pace accelerates for AC-12's final countdown

Apocalypse soon as the end of the line looms

As the finishing line begins to materialise through the haze of fear, suspicion and zany acronyms, the pace of this sixth series of Line of Duty (BBC One) has hotted up appreciably. In earlier episodes, there sometimes seemed to be a lack of intensity, and even the fabled interview scenes didn’t always grip like they used to. Maybe filming under Covid conditions had something to do with it.

Bent Coppers: Crossing the Line of Duty, BBC Two review - when crime paid handsomely for corrupt officers

★★★★ BENT COPPERS: CROSSING THE LINE OF DUTY, BBC TWO Astounding history of how the Met went rotten from within

Astounding history of how the Met went rotten from within

As Line of Duty aficionados debate the identity of H and wonder who DCI Joanne Davidson shares her DNA with, this new three-part series from BBC Two investigates the history of real-life corruption in the Metropolitan Police.

This is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist, Netflix - the last word (for now)

★★★ THIS IS A ROBBERY: THE WORLD'S BIGGEST ART HEIST, NETFLIX Three decades on and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum mystery is still hot

Three decades on and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum mystery is still hot

It’s no surprise that 30 years on, the individuals most closely connected to the world’s biggest art heist are showing their age. Anne Hawley was a young woman just months into her directorship of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston when thieves made off with 13 works of art, including a Chinese vase and drawings by Degas, a Vermeer and Rembrandt’s only seascape.

Grace, ITV review - sun, sea and skulduggery in sunny Brighton

★★★ GRACE, ITV Sun, sea and skulduggery in sunny Brighton

John Simm shines in patchy adaptation

We last saw John Simm on ITV in 2018’s Hong Kong-based murder mystery Strangers, a product from the Jack and Harry Williams script factory which wasted its exotic backdrops with a plot which mooched about in a dispirited fashion before dozing off entirely.