Dramas like
The Price of Confession

A woman working a long, cold plan against people who think they are safe. Same pleasure in watching somebody hold information back and spend it slowly, and the plan here actually holds together to the last scene. Difference: it is revenge as administration rather than a murder case, so there is no whodunnit to solve.

Hooks early Episode 2, once the board is set and you can see the shape of her plan.

One woman, three actresses, and a life that keeps getting worse in ways she chose. Both are built on a lead who cannot be fully trusted and neither one asks you to approve of her. Difference: it runs across twenty years and swaps perspectives, where this stays inside one investigation.

Slow start Episode 3, when the lead is recast and the show reveals it is a relay race across three actresses rather than one story.

A mother who does the unthinkable in the first hour and then has to live in the aftermath. Same structure of a crime that is not the mystery, with the interest sitting in what the woman at the centre does next. Difference: it is a melodrama with a family at its heart, so the temperature is warmer and the tears are earned rather than withheld.

Hooks early Episode 1. The loss, the killing and the prison sentence are all inside the first hour. There is no slow build.

Money, a dead colleague and three women who are cleverer than the men hunting them. Rated modestly and written brilliantly, which is the reverse of this show's problem, and the plotting holds where this one slips. Difference: the style is heightened and slightly unreal, so it plays as a fable rather than a procedural.

Hooks early Episode 1. The money goes missing inside the first hour and the show never slows down again.

People under pressure, behaving exactly as badly as the situation permits. Shares the flat, unsentimental read on human behaviour and the same willingness to make the middle uncomfortable. Difference: it is a satire with rules on the wall, so the cruelty is designed rather than personal.

Hooks early Episode 2, once the time for money rule is understood and the floors start turning on each other.

Six episodes of consequences arriving on schedule. The tightest thing here for anybody who wanted this show's front half and none of the padding, with an interlocking structure that never wastes a scene. Difference: no lead to root for at all, and the violence is much closer to the camera.

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