Dramas like
Connection

A small cover-up wired into a machine that nobody can switch off. Six episodes of people whose old decisions arrive back on schedule, and the interlocking structure does in a third of the runtime what this does across fourteen episodes. Difference: it is an ensemble with no hero at all, so there is nobody to root for.

Slow start Episode 3, once the separate timelines start colliding and the structure becomes the point of the whole thing.

The investigator is the problem with the investigation. Same premise of a professional who cannot be trusted with their own case, and the same push and pull between a detective and the person they should be arresting. Difference: it is a puzzle box built on clues left deliberately, where this is a chase built on chemistry and withdrawal.

Hooks early Episode 1. A profiler is the prime suspect in her own uncle's murder, and the puzzle cards start arriving immediately.

Two men in the same small town, both certain the other is lying, and both right. A friendship that doubles as a suspect list, which is what the class reunion here turns into, played by two actors at the very top of their range. Difference: it is slower and quieter, and the writing is a level above.

Slow start Episode 3, the point at which you stop trusting both leads at once.

A cop who has to become the thing he is investigating. Same drug-world plumbing and the same cost to the man doing the work, with a marriage under the same pressure. Difference: it is a 1990s period piece and considerably more violent.

Hooks early Episode 1. The undercover assignment starts immediately and the marriage is already a wound before the first hour ends.

Twenty episodes of a thriller that keeps moving the floor. Shares the pleasure of a lead whose own head is unreliable, and the per-episode scores never drop, which tells you how well it holds. Difference: the length is the standing objection, and the twists are much bigger swings than anything here.

Hooks early Episode 2, once the killer and the two men chasing him are locked into the same story.

A detective doing the job in a state that keeps rewriting his memory of it. The best procedural OCN made, and the closest thing here to this show's mix of case work and personal rot. Difference: the mechanism is a period jump rather than a drug, and the tone is warmer than you expect.

Hooks early Episode 2, once the 1988 precinct stops being a joke to him and starts being a place.