Liar

Two first-rate new thriller series to go head to head


Here’s a mystery: why would the schedulers pit two top-notch new thriller series against each other, both by the writers of The Missing, brothers Jack and Harry Ben-Felsenburg-colour-176Williams? In Liar (Monday, ITV, 9pm), teacher Laura (Joanne Froggatt, Downton Abbey) is glowing after being asked out by dishy surgeon Andrew (Ioan Gruffudd). So far, so romantic, you might think, as Laura gets dolled up for their date. Next morning Andrew chirpily tells the world he had a great time – but Laura is distraught.

Though her memory is foggy she believes something terrible happened, and the stage is set for a six-part tale which will keep us guessing to the end as to whose version of events will win out. Thinking caps on for Rellik (Monday, BBC1, 9pm), a fiendish headscratcher about an investigation into a series of acid attack murders – but with the story told in reverse. As we begin, armed policemen shoot dead the prime suspect, a paranoid schizophrenic. Yet lead detective

Gabriel (Richard Dormer) – his faced badly scarred by an acid attack – shares his doubts with fellow officer Elaine (Jodi Balfour) over whether they’ve got the right man. Rewind a few hours and an earlier chapter is filled in, then we journey still further back. Though initially disorientating, this is exemplary storytelling and beneath the novelty lies the kind of elegant sleuthery Dame Agatha would have admired.



NOT TO BE MISSED...

TVCOMP

COLD FEET (Friday, ITV, 9pm)
After being successfully rebooted last year, the comedy-drama starring Hermione Norris and James Nesbitt returns for a seven-part run.

STRICTLY COME DANCINg (Saturday, BBC1, 7pm)
Newcomer Shirley Ballas joins the judges, with Debbie Mcgee and the Rev Richard Coles among the contestants.

THE OTHER ONE (Wednesday, BBC2, 10pm)
Rebecca Front stars in this riotous comedy about a suddenly widowed woman who’s stunned to discover her husband was a bigamist with a second family.