Welsh Noir Drama Hinterland Coming to Netflix

Hwrê! (Hooray!) Hinterland, the Welsh crime drama that is every bit as noir as any of the ones from the Scandinavian countries, will be making its streaming debut in the US and Canada exclusively on Netflix.

Netflix scored another coup in the battle for exclusive content between subscription VOD services when it secured Hinterland (Y Gwyll or The Dusk in Welsh) earlier this year, and its subscribers are the winners.

The dark detective drama, set in and around the coastal town of Aberystwyth in Wales, centers on the investigations led by DCI Tom Mathias (Richard Harrington, Bleak House, MI-5), an outsider newly arrived from the Met in London with a troubled soul, a hidden past, and a trailer in the middle of seemingly nowhere that he now calls home.

He isn’t the only one with issues. Local gal DI Mared Rhys (Mali Harries, Foyle’s War) has a few of her own that she keeps close to the vest. And then there are members of the Aberystwyth community, people who can figuratively and literally bury their secrets.

Together with DS Sian Owens (Hannah Daniel, Casualty) and DC Lloyd Ellis (Alex Harries, Torchwood), Mathias and Rhys work tirelessly to solve crimes alongside the history, traditions, and myths that darken their every step.

Four feature-length episodes make up the first series of Hinterland (the second is currently in production), including…

“Devil’s Bridge” — Mathias’ first day in Aberystwyth gets off to a horrific start with a case that involves the legend of Devil’s Bridge and Helen Jenkins, a missing 64-year-old woman whose bathroom is found covered in blood.

“Night Music” — Discovered at his farmhouse is the body of the now-dead resident, 69-year-old amateur photographer Idris Williams, a man with decades-old family secrets that Mathias must uncover in order to unmask the killer.

“Penwyllt” — In the quarry of the remote village, the nearly-naked body of Michael Reynolds is found floating. The investigation leads Mathias and his team to reticent members of the tight-knit community, as well as to a man living alone in a caravan in the middle of the woods.

“The Girl in the Water” — The myth of Blodeuwedd figures in the case of murdered student Alys Thomas, and Mathias’ inner demons begin to manifest in ways that could jeopardize the case.

Like its Nordic Noir brethren, the keep-you-glued-to-the-telly stories in Hinterland are driven by the character studies of the cops, cons, and those who would be collateral damage, and moved forward in a methodically and deliberately slow yet not plodding way. In a word, the series is brilliant.

Netflix will begin streaming Hinterland on Monday, 1 September 2014.

__________________

Add your comments on our Facebook, Google+, and Twitter pages.