The City and the City (Season 1)

The City and the City (2018) is a BBC miniseries you can watch online on iFILM — four episodes adapted from China Miéville's novel by director Tom Shankland, with David Morrissey as Inspector Tyador Borlú.

A young woman's body turns up on the streets of Bešzel, a rundown Eastern European city. Routine homicide — until Borlú finds that the murdered woman came from Ul Qoma, a separate state that physically shares Bešzel's streets but is legally invisible to its residents. Citizens of both cities are trained from childhood to unsee the other side; Breach, a shadowy enforcement agency, handles anyone who slips. To pursue the case, Borlú must formally cross over — and the further he goes, the clearer it becomes that both cities have agreed to keep something buried.

A crime procedural built on one idea: that a border is not a line on a map but a shared agreement to look away. Lara Pulver and Mandeep Dhillon appear alongside Morrissey. Stream The City and the City online on iFILM.