James R | On 03, May 2021

With Season 6 of Line of Duty reaches its divisive conclusion last night, fans are torn between both debating the merits of what may well be the final run of the BBC One crime thriller to trying to find the next best thing to binge on. From Jed Mercurio’s other series to some of the best police thrillers of the past decade, we’ve got you covered. Here are 14 TV shows to fill the Line of Duty-shaped hole in your Sunday evenings.

Happy Valley: Season 1 and 2

This Yorkshire-set series from Last Tango in Halifax’s Sally Wainwright stars Sarah Lancashire and James Norton as police sergeant Catherine and villain Tommy Lee Royce in a show that manages the tricky balancing act between dark humour and grim crime drama – a mix that ensures likeable characters but also riveting plots that tighten their grip throughout each season.

Available on: BritBox UK

Bodyguard: Season 1

Jed Mercurio’s ridiculous and ridiculously tense paranoid thriller about a bodyguard (Richard Madden) to the Home Secretary (Keeley Hawes) is relentlessly pulse-pounding TV, blurring the line between duty of care and political conflicts.

Available on: Netflix UK

Giri/Haji: Season 1

One of the 2019’s most original and unique series, this globe-trotting, culture-blending thriller – about a Tokyo detective who travels to London to find out what happened to his yakuza-connected brother – is a remarkable piece of TV. Driven by the similarities between Japanese and English culture, rooted in personal connections and powered by performance that include Kelly Macdonald, this is a visually stunning, universal story of loyalty and responsibility.

Available on: Netflix UK

Bosch: Season 1 to 6

Based on Michael Connelly’s best-selling novels, the series is Amazon Prime Video’s longest-running original series and with good reason. Titus Welliver (Lost) stars as homicide Detective Harry Bosch, a gruff, tough and determined cop who navigates family responsibilities and personal history with cases that are at once grippingly complex and often genuinely dangerous. Slick, confident and well acted.

Available on: Amazon Prime

Bloodlands: Season 1

James Nesbitt is broodingly intense as DCI Tom Brannick in this gripping crime drama, which brings a polished sheen to darkly grim material, as a cold case awakens in Northern Ireland that brings with it the ghost of Goliath, a legendary killer who was reputed to be a former police officer who went missing 20 years ago. With Tom’s wife among Goliath’s victims, Nesbitt’s copper inevitably sees his judgement compromised and questioned – just the ticket to promise a twisting, gripping mystery plot.

Available on: BBC iPlayer

Mindhunter: Season 1 and 2

More talk show than crime thriller, David Fincher’s drama about the early days of forensic psychological profiling at the FBI is a gripping study of our fascination with criminals – a disturbing ride that doesn’t lose its grip.

Available on: Netflix UK

Collateral: Season 1

Carey Mulligan is quietly brilliant as a competent cop who doesn’t have a drinking problem or demons to battle in David Hare’s crime drama, which takes us from takeaway pizza to MI5 conspiracies, by way of institutional injustice in the immigration system. A complex, compellingly dark portrait of modern Britain, a country where deaths can be ignored, people-smuggling goes overlooked, and assassinations can be swept behind closed doors.

Available on Netflix UK

The Shield: Season 1 to 7

One of the best TV shows before the modern box set era, this drama about a dirty Los Angeles Police Department cop and the unit under his command paved the way for Breaking Bad with its study of an antihero on a gripping downward arc.

Available on: Amazon Prime

Spiral: Season 1 to 8

With Season 8 now on BBC iPlayer, the rest of this superb French thriller has also returned to stream. Following Laure Berthaud and her team of detectives facing the brutal world of organised crime, the iconic Paris-set thriller – which began way back in 2005 – hasn’t lost its gripping edge, its nuanced portrayal of the nature of justice or the dark cycle of crime under the city’s busy surface.

Available on: BBC iPlayer

Informer

This grippingly complex political thriller – about a British-Pakistan East Londoner who is arrested and lined up by the Counter-Terrorism Office who want him to infiltrate the circle of a known terrorist – places character over cliffhangers to surprising, challenging and moving effect.

Available on: BBC iPlayer

True Detective

Nic Pizzolato’s crime anthology, starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey in its first season, is at once a darkly threatening police mystery and a gripping portrait of a cycle of broken masculinity. Season 2, starring Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn and Rachel McAdams, lost some of that subtlety, but the intense atmosphere and committed performances make this series nonetheless one to watch.

Available on: Sky Atlantic / NOW (until 24th May 2021)

Unforgotten

Over three seasons, Unforgotten has become one of ITV’s best crime dramas, with its solid-gold lead duo of Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar proving wonderfully likeable but also just admirably competent. Season 4 delves into its darkest material yet, as we rejoin Sunny and Cassie as the latter is eyeing up early retirement, but their uniquely charming blend of optimism and professionalism has you glued to the screen whatever season you watch.

Available on: ITV Hub / BritBox UK

Bodies

Line of Duty and Bodyguard fans needing their next adrenaline fix can get just what the doctor ordered with Jed Mercurio’s medical drama, which debuted back in 2004. The series follows a junior doctor who begins to unearth the negligent practice of his boos, turning into a riveting, and often darkly disturbing series about NHS politics.

Available on: Amazon Prime

Critical

Starring Lennie James, Critical follows the “golden hour” of treatment for severe trauma patients; the first 60 minutes after they arrive in the building, when every second counts. Events occur in real-time, something demonstrated by a large red clock on the wall, which visibly ticks away the moments between vital decisions. The result is a fast-paced, heart-stopping ride.

Available on: Sky One / NOW (until 24th May 2021)

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