Dramas like
Through the Darkness

Two men in one small town, and no clean answer about either. Same conviction that the interesting question is what is going on inside a person rather than which door the killer is behind, and the same slow, cold camera. Difference: it is a mystery with a twist engine and a genuinely unreliable structure, so it thrills where this one explains.

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

Cold cases and the paperwork that reopens them. Same respect for the unglamorous half of police work and the same interest in what an institution refuses to look at again. Difference: the time-travel radio makes it a thriller with a clock, so it is built to grip rather than to sit with.

Hooks early Episode 1. The walkie-talkie premise is set up and paid off inside the first hour.

The same question about what makes a killer, answered much less carefully. Same procedural spine, same long interviews, same interest in the mind rather than the chase. Difference: twenty episodes and a much bigger swing, which is why it needs a warning and this one does not.

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

Institutional rot examined at close range, with the feeling removed. Same flat register and same understanding that the obstacle in a Korean crime story is usually a superior officer. Difference: prosecutors and politics rather than profiling, and the puzzle is a conspiracy rather than a person.

Hooks early Episode 2, once the first autopsy contradicts the official story.

Old police methods against new ones, which is this show's actual argument. Same period texture, same interest in a detective whose tools are the wrong tools. Difference: a time-slip premise and a much odder tone, where this one stays inside the record.

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

Why people break, and who decided not to notice. Same patience with the conditions that produce violence and the same refusal of a satisfying arrest. Difference: military conscription rather than serial murder, and its anger is aimed at a system instead of a mind.

Hooks early Episode 1. Six episodes, and the first deserter case establishes the entire pattern.