Morse, Columbo, Holmes, Watson, Poirot, Kojak, Rebus: you are nobody in the detecting business until the world knows you by surname only.

After two series of The Missing we have grown accustomed to Julien Baptiste’s craggy face, but has he done enough to stand with the rest of the second name only squad? On the evidence of this, the first of six episodes of The Missing spin-off, I’ll take the option of gazing into the middle distance for a ponder.

Baptiste, played by Tcheky Karyo, did a lot of that. Grey of hair and beard, he wore his wistfulness on his sleeve, like a sad Santa or a down in the dumps Gandalf. When we last saw the Frenchman he was suffering from a brain tumour and heading for the operating theatre, fate uncertain. When we meet him again he is in Amsterdam with wife Celia celebrating the birth of their first grandchild.

Also in Amsterdam is an Englishman, Edward Stratton (Tom Hollander) who is looking for his missing niece, Natalie, a drug addict. The local police commissioner asks Baptiste to help with the case. Of course she does. Poor old Baptiste cannot go anywhere without being drafted in by the local coppers. Like Michael Corleone, just when he thinks he is out of the missing person business, they pull him back in.

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“We’ve got no-one else with your experience,” says the chief, a “friend” of Baptiste’s from long ago. Writers Harry and Jack Williams have promised that this series will be in part about exploring Baptiste’s past, so put that fact down: was once in love with Amsterdam police chief. It might be important.

It would have been the wise viewer who kept notes in general, because the first instalment scattered plot lines left, right, and centre. Baptiste set about gathering clues, pausing every now and then to deliver a plaintive aside. “I do not feel as I did," was one. “Human feeling is a mystery," was another. All right mate, don’t go on, there’s a missing woman to find.

Stratton insisted on tagging along, even though he had already taken Natalie’s photo around the De Wallen district, where the local ladies like to take their clothes off to give the windows a good clean (why else were they standing there in skimpies?).

Baptiste spotted they were being followed. It is skills like that which explain why he is so in demand. After an unfeasibly long chase in which a paunchy Stratton and a limping Baptiste manage to catch a young guy, it seemed as though they had hit on a break.

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Don’t speak too soon. The Williams boys are not done yet. Now we are in a cellar with a lot of unhappy women; next it’s a bulb field where a German Shepherd, merrily tiptoeing through the tulips, has found something worth digging up. What is going on? My money is on people trafficking, which will be unfortunate if it turns out to be the case, because Shetland is currently digging in that area like a curious Alsatian. As for the multiple plot lines, either the Williams brothers are going to successfully navigate their way out of this maze, or Baptiste is going to be as irritatingly confusing as their last drama, Rellik.

The viewers’ only hope in making sense of it all is Baptiste. Our crumpled hero has found the missing before, made the impossible possible, through instinct, doggedness, and beaucoup Gallic charm, and he can do so again. He might need to cut back on that pondering, though, if he is to solve the case before Christmas.

  • Baptiste, BBC1, Sunday, 9pm​