← Binge

Collateral (2018)

2018 · Crime,Drama,Mystery · crime-detective-puzzle, political-drama, contemporary-realistic

Collateral poster

Collateral is a four-part BBC crime drama written by playwright David Hare, set in a multi-cultural London where the shooting of a pizza delivery man — an asylum seeker — unravels threads connecting an army assassin, a Labour MP, a female vicar, and the machinery of immigration enforcement. Its texture is distinctly theatrical: spare, confident dialogue, ideas-driven rather than action-driven, and deliberately slow-burn in pace. DI Kip Glaspie (Carey Mulligan) anchors proceedings with forensic determination, but the show is as interested in moral and political questions — about culpability, migration, and privilege — as in solving a crime. Reviewers find it intelligent, sometimes uneven, and unapologetically highbrow.

From the reviewers

his characters talk in short, confident sentences, that are non-expository; or at least, the words tell us something about the overall moof of the moment, but can feel almost deliberately obfuscatory in terms of plot
a situation that intially appears bizarrely byzantine to its investigators is in fact less complex than it seemed; the complexity a by-product of what they don't know
The underlying theme is thought-provoking too; the responsibility of those of us who live in the relatively comfortable world to those who do not. Hare clearly has strong opinions on this question; but his treatment, though partisan, is fair, and underpins rather than smothering the story.
Given that the killer is identified at the end of the first episode this series is more of a why-done-it than a who-done-it.
The worst flaw is the depiction of the military; soldiers in uniform when clearly off duty in public; saluting when not wearing berets or caps and a rifle range with a woods immediately behind the targets rather than a proper sand-trap

Explore all 293 prestige TV dramas on Binge →

The Curator's Index

Binge.

Curated Prestige Streaming

Opening up shop.

← Sightlines · the film atlas
Binge.

Curated Prestige Streaming

Find shows to watch based on real reviewer language. No collaborative filtering, no popularity boost. Your taste is the only algorithm here.

The collection

— shows

Browse the library. Filter by sub-genre, register, era, or popularity tier. Click a show to see its full characterization.

—