Television review: The Returned is the finest, purest heroin

With the possible exception of Game of Thrones, The Returned (Channel 4, Sunday) is the best series you will see on TV all year. I caught some early previews about a month ago when I was on The Review Show (BBC4). Normally the reviewers don’t agree on much but on this we were unanimous: we all felt like newly made addicts who’d been introduced to the finest, purest heroin — only to be suddenly denied our next fix. When was the rest of the series going to be broadcast? When? WHEN?

Well, now, finally it has made it on to Channel 4 and I hope you’ll all be as hooked as I am. It has been variously billed as a zombie thriller and a successor to Twin Peaks, but neither does justice to its intelligence, subtlety and eerie beauty. Rather, I’d say, the closer analogies are the first series of Six Feet Under (when it couldn’t put a foot wrong) and Tomas Alfredson’s haunting take on the vampire genre Let the Right One In. (And, if those references mean nothing to you, there’s another couple of must-sees to add to your catch-up list.)

The Returned — Les Revenants — was made in France in the mountain town of Annecy (where that unfortunate Iraqi/British family were mysteriously murdered by the hitman), and part of its allure lies in its creepy sense of place: like the remote hotel where Jack Nicholson goes mad in The Shining, you feel that almost anything could happen here. There’s a huge dam, perfect for committing suicide off; it’s approached by precipitous winding roads over the edge of which a coachload of boisterous schoolchildren could so easily plummet to their deaths.