During a summer in which crime drama fans seeking refuge from wall-to-wall sport have largely been left with old episodes of Midsomer Murders and Vera, anything new can feel like a life raft. Yet, while this six-part Scottish-set serial killer thriller is undoubtedly not a repeat, there’s an air of the familiar about it.
There are the remote, gusty glens; the wind turbines standing like dispassionate sentinels; the haunting soprano and mournful strings on the soundtrack; a body left naked and posed in prayer. And, naturally, there are two mismatched detectives: in this case, the coolly detached but clearly burdened DI Monica Kennedy (Laura Donnelly) and her new partner DC Connor Crawford (Mark Rowley), all charm and skinny-fit shirts.
The pair originated in a series of novels by GR Halliday, a Highlands-based author who’ll no doubt be hoping that The Dark does for his books what Shetland did for the back catalogue of Ann Cleeves. And there are similarities between the two shows, with the suspects quizzed by Kennedy and Crawford feeling as though they could just as easily have been interrogated by Jimmy Perez.
But where The Dark parts company is in its treatment of the antagonist. The masked murderer here has more than a touch of the slasher-movie monster about them. Early on, Kennedy theorises that the killer may have spent hours lurking at a crime scene, patiently waiting for their handiwork to be discovered.
Surveillance then becomes a recurring motif, with a steady stream of those predatory POV shots made famous by Halloween – moments where the camera stops behaving like a neutral observer and instead adopts the perspective of some unseen malevolent presence.
It creates the unnerving sense that someone is always watching and, indeed, the opening episode leaves viewers with a final image so eerie and disconcerting that few will be able to resist returning for episode two.
Yet, despite those Michael Myers flourishes, the killer ultimately feels closer to Ghostface than an unstoppable force. Like the hooded phantom from the Scream franchise, this assailant is fallible: it turns out they can be kicked, punched, hurt and sent sprawling over furniture, creating a welcome unpredictability during one showdown with a would-be victim. Throughout the sequence, it genuinely feels unclear who’s going to gain the upper hand.
The series is on shakier ground, however, when it comes to the police investigation. One suspect who the detectives believe ticks all the boxes couldn’t be more of a red herring if they came served up with chips. And later, Kennedy – still carrying the scars of a past investigation into a shadowy cult – makes the error of publicly branding her prey a coward at a press conference.
It’s a move that inevitably results in the killer making things personal by leaving a corpse on Kennedy’s doorstep, something she really ought to have seen coming given that she spends much time profiling the person she’s hunting. But dramas such as this almost require a degree of unsettling intimacy between detective and killer; eventually the hunt must come closer to home. To satisfy that demand, Kennedy is given a young daughter, Lucy, whose chief narrative purpose appears to be finding herself in peril.
Adding menace in that area is Philly (Rona Morison), a cult devotee whose obsession strays well beyond the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. But stalking the fringes of the case is someone else who deserves a mention: Anders Hayward as social worker James, a creepy wild-swimming enthusiast who always seems to be reacting to a joke nobody else has heard.
It’s in these smaller moments and fleeting glimpses of the perpetrator that The Dark is at its most chilling, though some of its other tricks begin to feel more well-worn. A dark lair adorned with taxidermy? Bible quotations? A troubled young man producing disturbing artwork? At times it resembles a psychological thriller starter kit.
Still, after so much football and tennis clogging up the schedules, familiarity is easier to forgive when it arrives wearing a mask and skulking in the shadows. The Dark may not reinvent crime drama, but the goosebumps it generates may take a while to subside.
The Dark is available to watch now on ITVX and continues on ITV1 at 9pm on Monday 13 July.
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