The Dark, STV, Sunday
***
Taggart, Rebus, Pirie, Perez - who would dare try to join the already oversubscribed Scottish television detectives club? As it is, your ambitious DI can barely swing an odd-ball pathologist without hitting a grumpy chief inspector. And mavericks? Don’t get us started.
It is with a certain trepidation, then, that we welcome DI Monica Kennedy to the waiting list. Played by Laura Donnelly, Kennedy is the creation of crime writer G.R. Halliday, whose novel From the Shadows has been adapted into a six-part series.
We meet Kennedy in a cinema with her mum and young daughter. Also at the movies is a disgruntled customer from a past case. Kennedy, having none of it, threatens to “bury” the woman if she harasses her family again. As the DI had earlier reassured her daughter during a scary bit in the movie, “Monsters are scared of me”.
Kennedy has seen it all before on the job, but even she has to wonder about the new case that falls to her. The body of a teenager has been found in a glen, posed naked as if to send a message.
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Helping Kennedy join the dots is new sidekick DC Connor Crawford (Mark Rowley, SAS Rogue Heroes), a gym-going laddish type who is as shallow as she is deep.
Kennedy knows the family of the dead teenager from a missing persons case five years ago. When another body is found with the same MO, it looks like a serial killer is at work.
Though the location is not made clear, The Dark is set somewhere wild, bleak and unmistakably Scottish. With a scattered community and a lack of street lighting, it is the ideal arena for a killer who operates under cover of darkness.
The production takes the darkness theme a touch too far. Even peering into the gloom, I still could not make out what was happening in some scenes. The brisk, expositional dialogue could have done with a lighter hand, too. “That will be the liaison officer, to take you to identify the body,” Kennedy tells a parent. Well, we didn’t think they were off shopping.
The surprisingly terrific cast includes Emun Elliott (Guilt, The Gold) and Helen Baxendale (Cold Feet) as bereaved parents, and Stella Gonet (Breeders) as Kennedy’s mother. Don’t mess with that granny.
As for Donnelly’s detective, she is and is not like the version in the novel. The books make much of the character’s tallness, but Donnelly (Outlander, Say Nothing) is tiny. With her dark hair, Gallic chic and magnificent eye bags, she is more Little Sparrow than Big Bird. She is also excellent in the role.
By far the biggest reason to call by again tonight is the villain. While not quite in the same league as Pennywise and Freddy Krueger, they still pack a chill. As Nick Ross used to warn at the close of Crimewatch, don’t have nightmares …
The Tech Billionaire Takeover, BBC2, Sunday
***
When it emerged recently that Donald Trump had made around $1 billion (£800 million) from cryptocurrency in 2025, it threw the spotlight on a sector that remains a mystery to many.
Reporter Matt Shea starts with two eyebrow-raising facts: there are now more billionaires than ever; and the 12 richest people in the world own almost the same total wealth as the bottom half of humankind.
When it comes to storing that wealth only one currency will do for some of the super-rich. But what is a cryptocurrency? Can you hold it in your hands? Who regulates it? And as he wonders at a gathering of tech bros, why does everyone need their money to be untraceable?
Shea spent a year looking for answers from some of the tech billionaires. What he found was a self-selecting elite who want to run things their way, democracy included. They even have their own island, Liberland, on the Danube to use for a trial run.
I’m not sure I left the documentary much wiser about how the currency works, but the enterprising Shea does convey a flavour of the main players. With no Musk interview, he secures access to Chinese crypto investor Justin Sun. In the film’s most effective scene, Sun and his PR adviser are heard trying to dictate what questions he should be asked. The director keeps the cameras running, capturing it all.
Just as telling are the closing captions, which document a later falling out among the billionaires. It would take a heart of stone not to laugh.
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