Cracker (1993-1996; 2007) was one of the stand-out television series of the 1990s, reinvigorating the television crime drama and winning both critical plaudits and ratings success. In Fitz, its flawed, self-destructive, arrogant but brilliant criminal psychologist hero, the series created one of the decade s most iconic characters, in the process turning Robbie Coltrane from a respected comic performer into an award-winning actor and a genuine star.

Cracker played freely with the conventions of the detective thriller, focusing less on the who of crime than the why . As...