Fans of high-profile, semi-comic crime shows are in luck this month with new seasons of old favorites and a debut. But if you’re looking for something with more ballast, try a British show called Informer (2018), which finds new angles on the confidential-informant trope and the sometimes agonizing uncertainty of the East Asian immigrant experience. Gabriel Waters (Paddy Considine) and his newbie partner, Holly Morten (Bel Powley), are members of a British counterterrorism police unit trying to gather information on the whereabouts of a terrorist rumored to be in London. They need fresh informants, so when a young British-Pakistani man named Raza Shar (Nabhaan Rizwan) gets into mild legal trouble, they use leverage to make him their eyes and ears. Rizwan is a nimble, quick-witted actor with a wide emotional range, and it must be said, a face the camera loves. His appeal, combined with the show’s skillful interweaving of several important plotlines, makes the last few episodes of Informer unbearably tense as the ground keeps shifting under him.
—Lisa Henricksson