River (Season 1)

River (2015) is a BBC crime drama worth watching online if you want something that sits between detective procedural and psychological character study. Stellan Skarsgård plays Detective John River, a gifted investigator who happens to hear voices — and see the dead. His colleagues don't know. His bosses suspect something. River keeps it together just enough to stay on the job.

His partner Jackie is shot in the street. Now her ghost won't leave him alone. She walks beside him through the grey London streets, argues with his hunches, and refuses to let him mourn quietly. Nicola Walker brings Jackie so fully to life in these flashback-and-vision sequences that her absence is felt in every scene she's in. River's task is to find her killer while pretending he isn't conducting half his investigation with a dead woman.

Writer Asha Bhardwaj built the series as six tight episodes — a lone portrait as much as a thriller. Skarsgård is at his most stripped-back here, and it works. Stream River (2015) online on iFILM.