HBO's long been the home of some of the very best detective shows ever made. While The Wire had multitudes well beyond its cop procedural elements, it was also fundamentally an incredibly nuanced portrayal of policing, after all.
Now, it's got another upcoming show that looks like it could be an instant classic for crime fans. This won't be nearly as long-running, though – Get Millie Black is a limited series starting on 25 November if you're in the US and will run through five episodes. In the UK it's coming to Channel 4, although that won't happen until early 2025.
For those who pay attention to the literary world, there's a huge interesting name attached to the show, too. It's been written by Booker Prize award-winning author Marlon James, whose complex novels have been celebrated in recent years. Get Millie Black stars Tamara Lawrance as Millie-Jean Black.
She's a detective in the UK who goes to Jamaica in search of a missing person. Born on the island but raised in London, she discovers that she doesn't know it as well as she'd assumed, and it looks like she'll have to navigate its underbelly carefully. It's also clear that there will be some amazing imagery to soak in.
The show's cast also includes Game of Thrones' Joe Dempsie, Gershwyn Eustache Jnr, and Chyna McQueen. For anyone who loves a good police procedural, it seems like it might be a little more psychologically and thematically complex than some others.
Still, the basics are still present in the form of a mysterious case, a determined detective, and a series of potentially corrupt institutions that don't seem to be helping her figure things out when they should. It might well confirm that HBO is still at the top of its game, just weeks after the end of the celebrated The Penguin indicated that the network knows how to make crime shows like no one else.
Whether you think HBO is the best streaming service or not might come down to whether you're in the US, too. It's much easier to get access to its shows with Max there, compared to the picture in the UK where reliance on Sky's scheduling often makes things a little more random. In this case, we've got Channel 4 to thank for Get Millie Black coming to our screens for free (eventually).
