The Addictive Netflix Sci-Fi Series You'll Finish in One Sitting

If you've ever wanted to watch a British crime show and thought, "You know what this needs? Time travel," then 'Bodies' on Netflix is very much in your wheelhouse. I came for Stephen Graham after his Al Capone days and, frankly, stayed glued for the clever premise, sharp casting, and properly British weirdness throughout. It's based on the DC Vertigo comic – one of those rare cases where the adaptation doesn't feel like a cheap copy of the source material.

One Corpse, Four Timelines

On paper, you might think it's another bleak UK police procedural. At first, it even tries to fool you into thinking that. But before you know it, we're knee-deep in a high-concept mystery that careens across decades (and one rather bleak future timeline). Here’s the basic set-up:

• It kicks off in London, 2023. Detective Sergeant Shahara Hasan (Amaka Okafor) is in the middle of a proper mess — she’s tailing an armed young Asian man during a Far Right protest when she stumbles on a naked body, shot dead. The bloke insists he’s innocent and then, before you can blink, kills himself. Suddenly, you’re not just getting a whodunit, but a fresh take on how prejudice and pressure collide in policing – not many crime shows front-load that stuff.
• Next, we’re yanked back to 1941. Charlie Whiteman (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) gets a dodgy call to move a body from Longharvest Lane, and yes, it’s suspiciously like the one from 2023. His story is haunted by his toxic boss Farrell, whose anti-Semitic bile practically seeps off the screen – the sort of detail the show uses not for shock, but to ground its social themes.
• Jump further back to 1890, and DI Alfred Hillinghead (Kyle Soller) is investigating the same murder. He teams up with a photographer from a gay newspaper and promptly gets warned by the local coroner to drop the case. Maybe he should've listened.
• Finally, in dystopian 2053, DC Iris Maplewood (Shira Haas) rolls up in her ‘future police’ car, tracking an electromagnetic anomaly back to good old Longharvest Lane, only to discover – you guessed it – the corpse again, now behind a radiation hazard sign for good measure.

They’re all chasing the same dead man, separated by more than a century, and the show dabbles quite playfully (sometimes brain-meltingly) in quantum physics and suitably bonkers sci-fi jargon to tie it all together. There's also a fair amount lifted from the original comic, but here it's polished up, properly layered, and never loses its British flavour.

The Stephen Graham Factor

Try explaining Graham’s character without giving away half the plot – it’s a bit like dancing in a minefield. Let's just say he sits at the heart of this sprawling 150-year conspiracy. His performance is precisely why this genre outing actually lands with non-nerds. Graham's understated, magnetic, and you wouldn't be wrong to call it a small crime that he never picked up an award for this one.

If you’ve followed his work, you know he’s got range. Here, we get to see all of it – never overdoing it, never insulting your intelligence with overcooked melodrama. It helps that the showrunner, Paul Tomalin, lets him play in a sandbox loaded with dense plotting and proper suspense, the kind Hitchcock would raise an eyebrow at. The overall mood leans into the chilly, twisted vibe of classic sci-fi novels but never forgets to deliver the essential: mystery and nerve-rattling tension.

Who Else Is In It?

There’s some excellent supporting work from Jacob Fortune-Lloyd (you’ll recognise him from The Queen’s Gambit and Medici), striking just the right note as a detective fighting his personal demons. Derek Riddell is reliably solid, reminiscent of his best turns in The Missing. Series creators Marco Kreuzpaintner and Haolu Wang tag-team the director’s chair, keeping up the quality across all eight episodes – a rare feat in TV these days.

The limited run means no padded episodes or meandering B-plots. Maybe you’d get more if Netflix had gone for the usual multi-season grind (or if it was made in the States), but honestly, the compact binge works out for the best.