# Criminal Record (2024)

> Two London detectives, one early in her career and one guarding his legacy, are pulled into reopening an old miscarriage of justice after an anonymous phone call.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/127316

## Facts

- Seasons: 2
- Episodes: 16
- Episode runtime: 50 min
- Status: Returning Series
- Genres: crime, drama, thriller
- Created by: Paul Rutman
- Network: Apple TV
- Cast: Peter Capaldi, Cush Jumbo, Shaun Dooley, Zoë Wanamaker, Charlie Creed-Miles, Cathy Tyson, Stephen Campbell Moore, Sia Alipour
- TMDB rating: 7.1/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21088136/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: tense, gritty, bleak, suspenseful, morally ambiguous

## What critics say

Audience reception is mixed, with the first season rated more favorably than the second.

## Synopsis

Criminal Record (2024-present) is a British crime drama series created by Paul Rutman for Apple TV. Peter Capaldi plays DCI Daniel Hegarty, a well-connected detective determined to protect his reputation, while Cush Jumbo plays DS June Lenker, a young officer early in her career. Their uneasy partnership begins when an anonymous phone call draws them into reopening an old miscarriage of justice in London. The engine of the series is the tension between Hegarty's need to shield his standing and Lenker's drive to uncover what really happened, with each episode unpeeling interviews, archive files, and buried evidence. Shaun Dooley plays DS Kim Cardwell, another officer caught in the investigation's fallout. The show unfolds as a serialized thriller across two seasons and sixteen episodes, with the case threading through every hour rather than resolving in isolated cases. Its register is tense, grim and driven by moral unease, with a gritty, rain-slicked London atmosphere and a sense that the institution itself may be complicit. Fans of Line of Duty, Shetland and The Fall will find resonance in its procedural rigor, cold case dread and compromised heroes. Set in present-day London, it is a British prestige crime story that rewards close attention.

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