# Baptiste (2019)

> A battered retired detective is drawn back into Amsterdam's criminal underworld, pursuing a case to the brink of obsession.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/73677

## Facts

- Seasons: 2
- Episodes: 12
- Episode runtime: 55 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: crime, drama
- Created by: Harry Williams, Jack Williams
- Network: BBC One
- Cast: Tchéky Karyo, Tom Hollander, Fiona Shaw, Dorka Gryllus, Alec Secăreanu, Miklós Béres, Gabriella Hámori, Anastasia Hille
- TMDB rating: 7.3/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8259142/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: bleak, tense, melancholic, relentless

## What critics say

Audiences rate Baptiste positively, with a well-liked lead performance and a gritty, dark crime tone, though the ratings sit in the mid-range.

## Synopsis

Baptiste (2019-2021) is a British crime drama series created by Harry Williams and Jack Williams for BBC One. Tchéky Karyo plays detective Julien Baptiste, a battered former investigator whose pursuit of criminals in Amsterdam escalates toward obsession. Tom Hollander plays Edward Stratton, Fiona Shaw plays Emma Chambers, and Anastasia Hille plays Celia Baptiste, with Dorka Gryllus, Jessica Raine and others filling the wider cast. The engine of the series is Baptiste's refusal to let go: each case pulls him deeper into a criminal underworld of stolen money, murder, missing persons and the trafficking that runs through the city's red-light district, and every step costs him more of his own life. The show runs across two seasons and twelve hour-long episodes, following a continuing story rather than standalone cases. It is a grim, tense European crime thriller with a melancholic and relentless register, set in a rain-soaked modern Amsterdam where the line between justice and personal ruin keeps blurring. Fans of Spiral, Wallander and The Killing will find resonance in its bleak procedural grit and its portrait of a haunted investigator.

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