What’s on TV this weekend: David Attenborough returns to the BBC with A Perfect Planet
The i 1/1/2021 Gerard Gilbert
Friday
9pm, BBC One
A new year and a new real-crime drama. This immaculately designed eight-part thriller follows the hunt for Charles Sobhraj, a conman and serial killer who preyed on young backpackers on the South East Asian “hippy trail” during the mid-1970s. We first meet Sobhraj (played with suitably chilling menace by Tahar Rahim) posing as a gem salesman on the fringes of Bangkok’s red-light district, with Jenna Coleman speaking in a French-Canadian accent as the killer’s girlfriend and accomplice. Billy Howle plays the Dutch diplomat whose hunt for two backpackers from the Netherlands throws him unwittingly on to Sobhraj’s trail.