Hard Sun

Brit Neil Cross's Hard Sun joins the bleak ranks of binge series occupied by Mr. Robot and The Night Of ... whose grim premises suggest the creator's intention to go dark and get ever darker. In the case of Hard Sun, the irony is deliberate and the brutality unrelenting. Cross, the creative mind behind Luther, has crafted his narrative around a catastrophic solar episode, not fully explained in season 1, that is predicted to destroy life on earth in five years (yes, cue Bowie). Were that horrible projection not enough to contend with, London's unhinged are using leaked reports of humanity's destruction as reason to mete out their own last-days retribution on sinners and saints alike. No, it's not a pretty picture but the three primary players are, er, stellar. Jim Sturgess, who I remember best from the Beatle's tribute film Across the Universe and the card-counting hat trick 21, plays DCI Charlie Hicks, a corrupt cop who may or may not have murdered a fellow officer; Agyness Deyn (Clash of Titans) as DI Elaine Renko, a crack detective and astoundingly messed up woman whose assigned to Hicks' unit to replace the dead detective and, secretly, to get to the bottom of the shooting; and the eminently watchable Nikki Amuka-Bird (Luther), as an MI5 operative on the hunt for the pirated documents that tell the story of the solar episode, code name Hard Sun. The series also features some outstanding work by the young actor Jo Jo Macari as Renko's slasher offspring, the psychotic but weirdly lovable Daniel.