Charlotte Regan... I knew I could trust you with absolutely anything. After months of waiting, all eight episodes of the director's TV debut — "unconventional" new crime drama Mint — are available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
Starring Emma Laird, Ben Coyle-Larner, Sam Riley, Laura Fraser, and Lindsay Duncan, we follow Shannon (Laird), the daughter of her area’s dominant crime family, who is desperately searching for romance in the shadow of her father, Dylan (Riley).
Shannon falls hard for Arran (Carner), a member of a rival crime family who has newly arrived in town. Their love story presents an undeniable connection that changes both of their lives for good, but not everyone in their lives sees it the same way.
While Shannon and Arran are navigating their forbidden romance, elsewhere, things are imploding for Shannon’s family. Dylan decides to step down as the head of the family for mysterious reasons.
The narrative might feel formulaic, or at the very least like Romeo and Juliet meets Channel 4's Humans, but the eight-episode binge quickly proves that it's so, so much more.
Why you need to stream Mint on BBC iPlayer this week
I could attribute the success of Mint to its stellar cast and storytelling, and while they're each fantastic, they're not what propels the show into the league of its own.
Unsurprisingly, it's the creative vision of Regan that makes the show unlike any other crime drama you can binge for free on BBC iPlayer. If anything, Mint is more like a work of art than a series of television.
From short, sharp editing to frequently changing camera equipment and perspective, you could easily take a scene from Mint, display it in a gallery and viewers would still get something from it.
Nowhere is the clearer than at the end of episode 1, intercutting Sharon in a moment of self-pleasure ecstasy with intruding police officers and dream-like delusions. The scene is over in about 20 seconds, with the instrumental for Charli XCX's latent banger Track 10 pumping in the distance.
In that short window of time, Regan gives us an entirely three-dimensional human experience. We're soothed, alert, hopeful, wary, despondent and mesmerized all at once, and the regular use of changing image ratios, camcorders and transitional footage only adds to that.
With Mint, we're being encouraged to think and engage in an entirely new way. We're not trying to solve a whodunnit or formulaic mystery, but rather asking questions about society and ourselves while watching.
The result is something fresh and beautifully probing. If BBC iPlayer continues to be this courageous in its commissioning, it's going to be an incredibly innovative and exciting streaming destination.
