Boxing Clever: Why every great show could do with a bit of Gabriel Byrne

— but I couldn’t hack all that death in The Serpent but my wife is thoroughly enjoying it, which makes me feel left out

Gabriel Byrne in ZeroZeroZero

ZeroZeroZero (Sky Atlantic, Thursday 9pm and Now TV) came with almost too much hype. First of all it’s based on a novel by Roberto Saviano, the journalist whose factual work on the mafia in Naples inspired the Italian crime series Gomorrah . I don’t know about you, but I reckon it’s the best TV show ever made.

Add in that ZeroZeroZero shares directors with both Gomorrah and True Detective and I was waiting for the first episode to blow me off the couch. It didn’t, and not just because I’m eating two Creme Eggs a night. The show follows a drug deal between Mexican dealers and Italian mob buyers and it all felt a bit obvious at the start. The Italians were all gorgeous suits and religious festivals and feeding their rivals to the pigs; the Mexicans were brutal and suave and corrupt, and that was just the cops. It felt like I was watching The Godfather and Narcos , side-by-side on a split screen, as the story veered between Italy and Mexico. They should have called it Deja Vu 2.