Criminal: UK

[Law & Order] combined satisfying stand-alone storytelling with interesting character arcs, the television equivalent of comfort food. Criminal scratches that itch, but also brings with it some important innovations and tweaks that elevate it into a truly interesting narrative experiment.

Attempts to create a running thread by fleshing out the police team’s relationships – office politics, post-work socialising, workplace affairs, unrequited crushes and competitive jostling to advance their careers – fall a little flat. You find yourself impatient to get back to the main battle of wits. Despite such flaws, though, Criminal grips, beguiles and keeps you guessing.

From his lengthy opening monologue through his emotional final scene, Harington is the addition to this season’s cast that’s giving a performance that seems more suited to the rhythms of the stage. The remaining three find better ways in Season 2 to take full advantage of the subtleties that Jim Field Smith’s direction can afford.

It is the kind of show that makes policing look stupidly easy – suspects buckling and confessing to the crime in the space of 45 minutes. The acting, though, makes the episodes worth watching.

All told, Criminal plays well for a specific group. Fans of crime dramas will have fun sinking their teeth into every episode as they get a feel for the different kinds of procedures deployed to take down a suspect depending on the country they’re in. But be warned: This is not a bingeable show. Spend too much time with Criminal and you risk getting bored stiff.

Sometimes the idea for a series is better than the execution. ... The repetition of the will-the-suspect-break idea begins to nag. Worse, and perhaps this is an American-based red flag, the legal counsel in all four countries leaves a lot to be desired. ... Criminal is an interesting if not necessarily original idea, and you can see the appeal for Netflix, but viewers are likely to want something more expansive.

Refusing to deviate from its formula except in minor ways, it’s a cat-and-mouse game that never lets the latter escape the clutches of the former—a situation that, in the final tally, results in monotony, and winds up squandering a host of great individual performances from David Tennant, Haley Atwell, Jérémie Renier and the incomparable Nina Hoss.