'Gut-wrenching' crime drama available to watch on BBC has near-perfect ratings and a stacked cast

You just can’t beat a good crime drama, and at this point, there’s countless British ones out there.

From Fool Me Once to Killing Eve and from Criminal: UK to The Missing we can’t get enough.

But not having the subscription fees of the likes of Netflix or Prime Video, there’s an absolutely ‘gut-wrenching’ series over on BBC iPlayer.

BBC

With near-perfect ratings and a properly stacked cast, this crime drama is said to be one of the best out there.

Series one of Time first premiered back in June 2021.

Starring Sean Bean, Stephen Graham and Siobhan Finneran, it received rave reviews.

The show follows Mark Cobden (Bean) who is racked with guilt after accidentally killing an innocent man while drunk driving.

While undergoing a four-year sentence in prison, he is soon targeted by 'one of the most dangeous inmates' who 'identifies his weakness' and must learn to defend himself while Eric McNally (Graham), faces a choice between his principles and his family.

And more recently, a second series of Time landed on BBC iPlayer, this time taking us to a women’s prison. Watch the series two trailer here:

Returning with truly devastating scenes that left some viewers calling it 'traumatic', series two starred Bella Ramsay, Jodie Whittaker and Tamara Lawrance.

The three star as inmates, Orla, Kelsey, and Abi, who are 'thrown together to face an unfamiliar world' when arriving at Carlingford Prison.

However, despite 'the ever-present threat of violence within its walls', the trio soon discover 'an unexpected sense of community, and a shared understanding, still might be possible'.

Ramsay’s Kelsey is a scam artist struggling with a drug addiction, while Whittaker plays Orla, a single mum doing time for stealing electricity and Lawrance plays Abi, a woman who is three years into a life sentence for murder.

BBC

Time has an impressive 96 percent average on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer with a respectful 87 percent average audience score.

Critics called the show ‘gut-wrenching’, with much praise directed to the actor's performances, while viewers wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that it’s an ‘incredibly difficult watch’.

One person put: “My word. This was one hell of a piece of TV. Binged last night. Writing, acting, everything just phenomenal. Heart-breaking but so worth the watch!!”

And while others say it’s so ‘powerful’ they don’t have the ‘bandwidth’ for it, or that they weren’t overly impressed, many say it’s ‘drama at it’s very, very best’.

Topics: BBC, TV and Film, Stephen Graham, Sean Bean

Jess Battison

Jess is an Entertainment Journalist with a love of all things pop culture. Her main interests include keeping up with the Twitter girlies, waiting for a new series of The Traitors and losing her voice at a Beyoncé concert. She graduated with a first in Journalism from City, University of London in 2021 and has previously worked at MyLondon.

@jessbattison_