Dark crime series makes return

This is the first season to get its own subtitle, Night Country, and that's not all that's different.

Where earlier seasons were dark, but very grounded crime dramas, Night Country opens like a sci-fi thriller akin to The Thing or Underwater.

Set in the constant night of Alaskan winter (the sun won't rise for six months), this season sees eight researchers at a remote ice station suddenly disappear, going missing midway through their meals and watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off on TV.

We get to see a few of these scientists in action before the disappearance, and are left with the confusing image of one of them seemingly seizing, then yelling out "she's awake".

We're then introduced to our investigators for the season, the tough-as-nails trooper Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis), an Indigenous woman who has never gotten over the unsolved murder case she caught years earlier, and Liz Danvers (the incomparable Jodie Foster, yet another Oscar-winning actor in the True Detective fold, after Matthew McConaughey and Mahershala Ali), who's in charge of disappearance case.

This season has the same small-town, everyone-knowns-everyone ingredient that worked so well in seasons one and three.

Danvers' fellow cops are a father and son duo (played by John Hawkes and Finn Bennett), and the younger man used to babysit Danvers' adopted daughter.

Everyone has some connection to someone else, and this dynamic is bound to grow in importance as the season goes on.

The opening episode provides plenty of mystery and more than enough questions to continue tuning in week after week to figure out what's going on.

Foster's acting alone is enough to give this season a solid go.

Night Country's theme music will be a little bit of a shock for dedicated True Detective fans - gone are the heavy, deep, gravelling vocals of T-Bone Burnett and Leonard Cohen, replaced instead with Billie Eilish's whispery vocals on Bury a Friend.

Aussie writer Trent Dalton's coming-of-age novel inspired by his own childhood, Boy Swallows Universe, gets the series treatment at Netflix with an all-star Australian cast.

The series follows Eli Bell (played firstly by the highly talented young actor Felix Cameron, then by Zac Burgess), whose mother is a heroin addict, father is missing and stepfather is a heroin dealer.

His babysitter was in prison for murder, and his best friends are his mute older brother and a prison pen pal named Alex Bermuda (Briggs).

Despite the very heavy themes and story, Boy Swallows Universe does a remarkable job of keeping the tone light and whimsical, especially in the beginning.

It's very Australian, set in 1980s Brisbane, and a fascinating watch.

Also stars Phoebe Tonkin, Travis Fimmel, Bryan Brown, Anthony LaPaglia, Deborah Mailman and more.

If you're a fan of Seth MacFarlane's work - namely, the Ted films and Family Guy - and 90s era sitcoms, then Ted the series will definitely be your jam.

This show is a prequel to films, set when John (played by Mark Wahlberg in the films and Max Burkholder here) and Ted are in high school.