This Gritty, Daring 7-Part Detective Noir Show Is Your Next Weekend Binge

In 2011, the BBC aired a miniseries that lurked in the shadows — just as its title, The Shadow Line, suggests — both in its content and the landscape of media. It was an ambitious project that stayed true to the hard-boiled style of film noir, but one that was criminally overlooked despite its daring premise and performances. Instead of focusing on a world-weary detective (don't worry, it still has one of those), the show ventures beyond the titular line and follows members of a criminal empire as they try to solve the same crime. The good and bad guys race against the clock to figure out the truth, though who's to say there are any good guys?

The Shadow Line begins with the death of a drug kingpin right after he was released from prison by way of a royal pardon, much to the public's bafflement. On one hand, law enforcement is on the case with Detective Gabriel (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who returns to duty after he was involved in an incident that left him with a bullet lodged in his brain. On the other hand, the criminal underworld is spurred into hunting down the murderer, all while vying for the business left in the druglord's wake, including characters like "flower man" Joseph Bede (Christopher Eccleston) and the psychotic Jay Wratten (Rafe Spall). As the show progresses, it becomes increasingly unclear who to trust and why, as the past and motivations are kept in just as much darkness as the screen is.

Detectives and Criminals Race To Solve a Murder in 'The Shadow Line'

The Shadow Line all comes down to that metaphorical line, the one that splits the city into above and below, moral and amoral. At least, that's how it seems. The parallel investigations and crossovers between Detective Gabriel and Joseph are the anchor of the show, but the scope is broadened to include wider corruption in justice, the media, and politics, while also honing into the finer details of smuggling drugs. It isn't about the line anymore, but about how porous or perhaps illusory the line is. Amnesiac detectives can have mysterious cash stashed away in their closets, and drug-pushing florists can have the heartache of a loved one with a neurodegenerative disease. Well, then there are pitch-black assassins who nearly drown cats, but Gatehouse (Stephen Rea) encapsulates every dark-alleyway fear of the average person.

In creating these seven episodes, Hugo Blick is persistent in maintaining a dark, stylized, and bleak watch. Light is cast from above, lengthening the shadows so each frown line and wicked grin hints at secrets and conspiracies, while the colors are drained from the screen, resulting in a rendering of the city that is just as murky as its inhabitants. It makes for an intense weekend binge, one that may look depressing on the surface but has a vice-like grip on your attention as you're constantly bewildered by the unfolding events. When morals steadily disintegrate into the shadows, there's no knowing what either side is capable of in the search for truth and power.

Christopher Eccleston and Chiwetel Ejiofor Anchor an Addictive Binge

Ejiofor's Gabriel and Eccleston's Joseph keep the central storyline running with a compelling mix of darkness and humanity, but it is the psychopaths who completely bowdlerize the eponymous line that demands our attention. The Shadow Line hastens its slow-burn whenever Gatehouse or Jay appear on-screen, breaking the simmering promise of cruelty with mostly closed-door violence. Spall's Jay is the nephew of the recently deceased drug lord, and he is determined to wrangle back control over the business from Joseph, but his psychopathic tendencies become a liability more often than not. But it does mean we frequently get to see Spall pull his lips back in a predatory grin after he does something especially dastardly, like castrate a rival gang member behind elevator doors.

While Jay is immaturely indulgent in his sadism, Rea's Gatehouse is polished and debonair as a mirthless killer. He is one of the few characters that doesn't reach for clichés in his dialogue and is steadily unnerving and surreal in his performance, from orchestrating merciless deaths to sitting on a filing cabinet during surveillance. It feels like he lives in a realm beyond The Shadow Line. Where characters have to resort to clichés to make sense of the corrupt powers displayed in front of them, he skirts the outside and manipulates from the shadows. Chills are evoked whenever he appears on the screen, providing a darker counterpart to those who are mindful of the morality line.

When you read the title of the show, you may think you're ready for the grittiness of The Shadow Line, but nothing quite prepares you for its utterly powerful presence. It's gripping in its premise, where it muddies the forces of supposed good and evil, while delivering enough sharp and outlandish beats to keep you hooked. During its time, TV could not be more ambitious than what The Shadow Line achieves, so it deserves far more attention than it has gotten — even if it thrives in the shadows.