If Silent Witness is your go-to crime drama, we’ve found the perfect replacement for a weekend binge. Starring the series’ favourite Emilia Fox, and from the same producers that brought us The Missing (Harry and Jack Williams), Strangers is an outstanding twisty crime drama that swaps the forensic lab for a high-stakes international mystery.
The eight-part series, which first aired on ITV1 in 2018, follows Professor Jonah Mulray (John Simm) who leads a quiet life in London, until he receives a devastating phone call informing him his wife has died in Hong Kong. He soon embarks on his own murder investigation, uncovering a dark conspiracy and her secret double life.
With the series available to watch now, here’s everything you need to know about Stangers including the plot, cast and how to watch it.
What is Strangers about?
The thriller follows Professor Jonah Mulray (John Simm), who lives a sheltered life in London while his wife, Megan (Dervla Kirwan), spends half the year working in Hong Kong. Despite her living on the other side of the world, he’s never made the trip to see her since he’s petrified of flying. However, when he receives a horrifying call alerting him that his wife has died in a car crash – he’s forced to fly over to identify her body.
Upon arriving, he’s overcome with grief, and led to the mortuary by a seemingly empathetic British Consulate worker Sally Porter (Emilia Fox), who helps guide him through the devastating aftermath of Megan’s death. But when he listens to a voicemail from his wife that she sent before she died, he begins to question the strange circumstances around her death.
Jonah becomes hellbent on finding the truth behind what happened to his wife, who he soon discovers was leading a double life and was embroiled in a world he knew nothing about. Over the course of eight episodes, Jonah must acclimatise to his new environment and unearth secrets leading to an entire conspiracy, making him question if he knew his wife at all.
What to read next
Is there a trailer for Strangers?
Yes, you can watch the trailer for Strangers below.
Who’s in the cast of Strangers?
The cast of Strangers includes:
- John Simm (Grace, Prey, I, Jack Wright) as Professor Jonah Dougal Mulray
- Anthony Chau-Sang Wong (The Untold Story) as David Chen
- Emilia Fox (as pictured above in Silent Witness, Signora Volpe) as Sally Porter
- Katie Leung (Bridgerton) as Lau Chen
- Anthony Hayes (Secrets & Lies) as Michael Cohen
- Tom Wu (Marco Polo) as Detective Inspector Daniel Tsui
- Dervla Kirwan (Smother) as Megan Emilia Harris
- Tim McInnerny (Notting Hill, Blackadder) as Arthur Bach
- Raquel Cassidy (Downton Abbey) as Rachel Hargreaves
- Thomas Chaanhing (The Wheel Of Time) as Detective Inspector Felix Chong
- Kenneth Tsang (Racing Peak) as Xiadong Xo
- Jason Wong (Mutiny) as Kai Huang
- Kae Alexander (Bad Education) as Becky
- Andrew Knott (The Secret Garden) as Conrad Davis
Is Strangers any good?
Yes – if you’re into pacy, psychological thrillers, you’re going to find it hard not to race through this series. While Silent Witness is a classic British procedural series following forensic pathologists, Strangers has a more relatable and emotional feel, with John Simms being an ordinary man trying to get to grips with both his wife’s death and her betrayal. The tension is increasingly palpable across the series as you become wary of all the characters Jonah encounters. Sally (played by Emilia Fox) is a long way from the empathetic Nikki Alexander, and the more Jonah digs, the clearer it becomes that he can’t trust her.
How can I watch Strangers?
Strangers is available to watch now on ITVX.
What other crime dramas can I watch now?
For a cosier watch with brilliantly baffling murder cases, we’d recommend My Life Is Murder. The series takes us into the world of Alexa Crowe (Lucy Lawless), a fearless investigator for whom there’s no case too tricky (quite literally). And when she’s not solving crime? She’s baking bread, which helps her keep her cool. You can watch My Life Is Murder on Acorn TV via Prime Video. For Peaky Blinders fans, The Long Firm is a sleek gangster series that tells the story of Harry Starks (Mark Strong), an unconventional gangster operating in the murky underworld of 1960s London. The Long Firm is available to watch now on U.
