True Detective: Night Country; Silent Witness; Streets Of Gold: Mumbai

“Traditionally, January is a time for escapist television. With the long nights and the dour days, the function of the shiny big screen on the wall is to take you away from it all, ideally to sun-kissed beaches (Death in Paradise) or just somewhere fun. HBO’s True Detective (Sky Atlantic) is an escape of sorts, but if it was a holiday you were looking for then this is like one of those minibreaks where you turn up and the hotel’s not finished, the neighbours are psychos and then you break your leg in six places on the way to the airport. Welcome to six hours in Night Country’s Alaska.”
Benji Wilson, Telegraph

“I wondered, briefly, whether I should give five stars to True Detective when it is darker than a thousand midnights and sometimes so gruesome that it could out-horror a horror film (and I hate horror films). But how could I not when Jodie Foster is superb in it? The plot is unforgettable, even if the ultimate, gobsmacking denouement may test your credulity.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“The best storytelling spawns multiple plausible interpretations and, under the cover of an unending darkness, the ominous and unsettling Night Country is set to do just that. Confidently helmed, stunningly shot and richly performed, it is spellbinding, bone-chilling and does just about the last thing you’d expect from True Detective four series in: it makes you want more.”
Rachel Sigee, The i

“Night Country is a brilliant inversion of the men-heavy, heat-oppressed, narratively bloated series that have gone before. [Issa] López has kept the off-kilter essence of the thing but made it – with the help of [Jodie] Foster, [Kali] Reis and an array of other fine actors, including Fiona Shaw and Christopher Eccleston – its own thing. She has created a brooding, melancholy world of terrible possibilities and made True Detective not just worth watching again but more so than ever.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“The first True Detective was superb because, for all the dark spookiness, it was an engrossing drama about two angry, flawed cops. This time round, it’s fast-moving and beautifully shot, and — if it can develop the fractured relationship between Danvers and Navarro — might become excellent too. But if it just keeps adding layers of weirdness, it will turn into another Fortitude. And there’s not much point in that.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Grievance Culture, a two-parter written by Tim Prager, was the perfect example of how to keep an old show on point, without actually changing anything. We began, as you’d hope and expect, with a body on the banks of the Thames. A suicide – or so it seemed, although (as you’d hope and expect) it soon became clear this was merely a B-plot. It did, however, give the props guys a chance to lay out some slices of brain that looked distinctly like soggy rice cakes.”
Benji Wilson, Telegraph

“This was a far more engaging hour than last week’s opening episode, which drooled over the city’s billionaires. What came as the biggest surprise was to realise how much wealth there is in the slums. One man, sharing a one-room shack with his parents and brother, was able to spend £30,000 on his wedding. Fancy schmancy!”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail