Action & Adventure series 88 series

An action series asks us to come back next week for another chase, so the chase has to be worth more than the catch. What we score is the person doing the running: whether we mind when they stop for breath, and whether each episode's danger changes them or simply resets them. The good ones spend their money on faces rather than explosions. Our shelf leans towards the 2000s and towards series that are really police dramas or science fiction in a hurry, which suits us; a fight is only as tense as the argument behind it.

Start with Andor (86), a political thriller that takes its time and repays it; Spiral (86), eight series of French police work and one of the great television detectives; and Callan (86), with Edward Woodward as a killer who questions his orders. After those, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine shows what a franchise can do once it stops moving and starts thinking.