The Gone (BBC2)

Rating:

The essence of The Sweeney persists in Australia, where it’s best not to underestimate the detectives. Even a sarcastic ‘No comment’ might result in a physical reprimand.

Richard Flood embodies the spirit of a contemporary Jack Regan in the crime thriller The Gone, resorting to his knuckles during interrogations when his journalist girlfriend goes missing in the mountains of New Zealand.

He’s a shaven-headed Irish copper called Theo Richter, at the tail end of an investigation after two backpackers from Eire were kidnapped. 

Thankfully, his sidekick isn’t a Dennis Waterman lookalike: that would be taking 1970s police brutality too far.

However, he is paired with a Maori police officer, Diana Huia (played by Acushla-Tara Kupe), who enjoys administering justice to criminals just as much as he does. When they confront a local criminal known as Frank Pastors (portrayed by Owen Black), who is incarcerated for assaulting another policeman, the scene lacks the usual formalities — no recording devices, no attorney present.

Before Diana can echo, ‘We’re the Sweeney, son, and we haven’t had our dinner,’ Richter has already toppled the thug out of his seat, pinning him down by the chest with both hands around his neck. Easy there, boss.

Richard Flood plays a modern-day Jack Regan as crime thriller The Gone returns, using his fists to interview suspects when his journalist girlfriend goes missing in the New Zealand mountains.

Richard Flood (pictured in September 2018) appears as a bald Irish detective named Theo Richter, at the concluding stages of a case after two Irish backpackers were abducted.

If The Gone stuck to this straightforward format of summary justice, it might be entertaining. But it’s a disjointed mess of horror movie, teen drama, noir crime and anti-British preaching about colonialism.

In a rural town where the police chief urges residents to trust their neighbours and leave their doors unlocked at night, a demonic serial killer is on the prowl. He’s been around so long, he’s acquired a mythological nickname — the Goat-man.

Theo and Diana track him to a shack in the woods, where the walls are riddled with bullet holes and a charred goat skeleton is sprawled on the sofa. My first thought was that the Goat-man must have fallen asleep with a cigarette smouldering, but this was only the first of six episodes . . . and mass murderers don’t usually suffer accidental deaths so early on.

If you didn’t watch the first series, you’ll have trouble making much sense of the plot. Although the hunt for the missing journalist is a new storyline, most of the characters were more interested in tying up loose ends from the previous series — details that few viewers will care about, because they no longer matter.

If The Gone stuck to this straightforward format of summary justice, it might be entertaining. But it’s a disjointed mess of horror movie, teen drama, noir crime and anti-British preaching about colonialism

If you didn’t watch the first series, you’ll have trouble making much sense of the plot. Although the hunt for the missing journalist is a new storyline, most of the characters were more interested in tying up loose ends from the previous series 

The younger ones are all suffering from post-traumatic stress after the kidnapping, in which a drug dealer died. His girlfriend is mooching around, recording videos for social media, which is how Gen Z process their traumas.

Maori elders Wiki (Vanessa Rare) and Buster Huia (Wayne Hapi) are more upset about invasive species: ‘Deer and pigs, they root up the ground, eat all the native trees. Gifts from Queen Victoria . . . along with influenza and attempted genocide.’

With a bit of luck, the Goat-man will turn his attention to pigs and deer. Historic trauma fixed.