When it gets going, the Netflix show is a pleasingly fraught watch about an Iranian mole, packed with risky missions and heroic acts. Breathtaking stuff

The Night Agent started life as a determined little underdog. Uncool, old-fashioned and on the wrong side of Netflix’s tendency to hype some shows while leaving others unloved, it had to fight its way into the streaming platform’s most-viewed section and critics’ best-of-2023 lists, which it did simply by being a sturdily constructed, twist-packed conspiracy thriller. Once viewers switched it on, they couldn’t switch it off.

It concerns Night Action, an awkwardly named arm of the American intelligence services that is so secret it doesn’t officially exist. When we met him, Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso) was its most junior employee, answering the landline phone that rang in the White House basement when an agent needed assistance. By the end of the first season, Peter’s courage, hand-to-hand combat skills and, most of all, his unswerving, country-serving, square-jawed moral code had seen him single-handedly foil a presidential assassination plot.