Over the past fifteen years, television has steadily eclipsed film as the medium for prestige drama. US cable network HBO has been central to this, producing shows (The Sopranos, The Wire, Game of Thrones) that, in visual sophistication and narrative scope, helped transform television into art. HBO's new eight-part mini-series, The Night Of, sustains that high standard. Exemplifying the talent-shift from film, stage, and novels to television, this intelligent crime drama is created by Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Zaillian and Oscar-nominated novelist–screenwriter Richard Price, whose credits include Schindler's List, The Wire, and Gangs of New York. It is based on BAFTA-winning dramatist Peter Moffat's BBC series Criminal Justice (2008). That heft shows throughout.

The Night Of centres on Nasir 'Naz' Khan, a Pakistani-American college student played by Riz Ahmed, who tutors the basketball team, lives with his parents, and stays teetotal as a relatively observant Muslim. Invited to an athletes' party but stood up for a lift, Naz hastily 'borrows' his father's cab. Over the following hours, Naz's life unspools, first slowly, then with panicked speed. When Andrea Cornish, a damaged party-girl played beautifully by Sofia Black-D'Elia, mistakes him for a real cabbie, Naz agrees to drive her to the beach. Back at her expensive townhouse, lit by fairy-lights, Naz nervously takes drugs, tequila shots, and then has sex for the second time ever. After waking, groggy in the kitchen, Naz goes upstairs to say goodnight. He finds Andrea stabbed to death. Arterial blood streaks the wall. Knowing his innocence, but understanding how it looks, Naz runs. His arrest, remand, and prosecution form the show's spine.