The Day of the Jackal

The 10-part contemporary update of the 1971 novel The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth about a globetrotting assassin is the glamorous flipside of Slow Horses but equally as compelling.

Eddie Redmayne plays the hitman, and has a lot of fun with some of the prosthetically enhanced disguises he's required to don, while making The Jackal an intriguingly cryptic personality, as he switches from sincerely tender-seeming family man to cold-blooded killer.

And Lashana Lynch is every bit the match for him as the agent on his trail: it's pleasing, indeed, just how morally compromised her character Bianca is, guilty of callousness that makes you gasp and makes James Bond look like Mary Poppins.

In fact, though, the writer/creator Ronan Bennett (who was also behind Netflix's Top Boy) has given the series a distinct Bond film vibe, from the stylish opening credits with their jazzy torch song theme tune to masterfully-filmed action sequences like a Munich car chase.

But, more surprisingly, perhaps, the less high-octane domestic drama also compels, with Spanish actress Úrsula Corberó doing committed work as The Jackal's suspicious, conflicted wife. Blockbuster TV drama at its best.