The former X-Files star plays Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson, seconded to Belfast from the London Metropolitan Police to review the investigation into an unsolved high-profile murder.
The local police, while used to dealing with sectarian killings, have no experience of tackling serial killers and although under increasing pressure to make an arrest, they have no suspects.
Gibson puts herself forward to head a Task Force dedicated to bringing the killer to justice. While she senses hostility as an outsider she brings with her the knowledge of how certain kinds of serial predators hide in plain sight.
The BBC stresses that this show “isn’t a whodunit. Rather, a will-they-stop-him?” with the killer identified to the audience from the start and the drama increases in intensity by playing out the cat and mouse game from both sides.
Viewers will see the killer, Paul Spector (played by Jamie Dornan) go to work, kiss his wife and children goodnight, and then go out killing. The case will be explored in all its complexity, establishing on screen how it is that a modern, top-level Murder Investigation Team work when they come up against every police officer’s worst nightmare.
The Fall is a new television series produced by Fables Limited in association with Artists Studio for BBC Two, commissioned by BBC Northern Ireland, with funding from Northern Ireland Screen.
BBC Two and BBC Two HD, 13 May at 9.00pm