Hinterland: The Haunting Welsh Crime Drama Fans Still Can’t Stop Watching

If you miss the bleak atmosphere and troubled detectives of Shetland, there is another British crime drama that deserves a place on your watchlist. Hinterland takes the familiar ingredients of a slow-burning detective mystery — a damaged investigator, disturbing cases and an unforgiving landscape — and places them against the remote beauty of west Wales.

Set in and around Aberystwyth, the atmospheric crime drama follows DCI Tom Mathias, played by Richard Harrington, a former London Metropolitan Police detective who has moved to Wales hoping for a fresh start. Instead, he finds himself investigating some of the darkest cases in the area.

The series originally premiered on S4C in Welsh on October 29, 2013, with the English-language version later shown on BBC Cymru Wales and BBC Four. It ran for three seasons, with the third series arriving in 2016.

A Troubled Detective In A Haunting Setting

Tom Mathias is not the typical television detective who leaves his personal problems at the station.

Brilliant but deeply troubled, he arrives in Aberystwyth after a decade with the London Met, carrying a past that continues to affect both his professional and personal life.

The remote Welsh setting becomes an important part of the drama itself. The series was filmed in Ceredigion, with Aberystwyth at its centre, using the area’s dramatic coastline, countryside and isolated locations to create an atmosphere that can feel as unsettling as the crimes Mathias investigates.

Rather than rushing from one revelation to the next, Hinterland allows its mysteries to unfold gradually, giving the landscape and characters room to create tension.

The Case That Sets The Tone

The first series begins with Mathias being called to an isolated chalet in the sand dunes after a brutal attack.

The victim, Helen Jenkins, is believed to be a 64-year-old religious woman, but she has disappeared.

The investigation takes Mathias and his team to the remote village of Devil’s Bridge, where Helen’s body is eventually discovered at the bottom of a deep ravine.

The location leads to another disturbing clue. Helen had once run a children’s home near the site, but the home closed 15 years earlier and has since been converted into a hotel.

Inside its untouched attic, Mathias finds traces of a painful past. To solve Helen’s murder, he must uncover what happened at the children’s home — and why its secrets still matter.

Richard Harrington Leads A Strong Cast

Richard Harrington anchors the series as DCI Tom Mathias, bringing a restrained intensity to a detective whose professional instincts are constantly complicated by his personal struggles.

He is joined by Mali Harries as DI Mared Rhys, Alex Harries as DC Lloyd Elis, Hannah Daniel as DS Siân Owens and Aneirin Hughes as Chief Superintendent Brian Prosser. The same core team appears throughout the drama as Mathias tackles a succession of difficult investigations.

The relationship between Mathias and his colleagues also gives the series another layer beyond its individual cases, particularly as the detective’s own secrets gradually become harder to keep buried.

The Darkness Goes Beyond The Crimes

Part of what makes Hinterland distinctive is that its mysteries are closely tied to the people and places surrounding them.

The cases are often unsettling, but the drama also spends time exploring the emotional damage left behind by violence and the personal histories that shape the people involved.

Mathias himself becomes increasingly central to that darker side of the story. By the end of the first series, his professional responsibilities and personal feelings collide, leaving his own future uncertain.

The second series continues to explore those personal demons while introducing new cases. S4C described the second season as four new cases spread across eight 60-minute episodes, filmed in the striking and sometimes desolate landscape of Ceredigion.

By the third series, the drama begins addressing several of the mysteries that had remained unresolved, including the circumstances surrounding an attack that leaves Mathias questioning who he can trust.

A Crime Drama With A Loyal Following

The series has built a strong following since its original broadcast, and its reputation has continued beyond its initial Welsh run.

Rotten Tomatoes currently lists Season 1 at 83% from six critic reviews, with an 82% audience score. The site describes the series as a detective drama set in Aberystwyth against a mountainous Welsh backdrop.

The series has also been singled out as a hidden gem by Rotten Tomatoes’ own editorial list of Netflix series, where Hinterland appears among recommended lesser-known shows.

Viewers have similarly praised its atmosphere, performances and deliberately measured pace, with fans describing it as “excellent,” a “must-watch” and one of the strongest crime dramas they have discovered.

One viewer praised its writing and performances, while another summed up its appeal as “haunting, beautiful and bleak.” A further fan went even further, calling it one of the best crime shows of the last decade.

Why Hinterland Still Stands Out

There is a familiar appeal for fans of atmospheric British mysteries: complicated crimes, a detective carrying emotional baggage and a landscape that feels inseparable from the story.

But Hinterland gives that formula a distinctly Welsh identity.

Its remote setting, slow-building investigations and troubled central detective create a mood that is less concerned with spectacle and more interested in what lies beneath each case.

With three seasons following Tom Mathias and his team through the darkest corners of Aberystwyth and Ceredigion, Hinterland offers a substantial mystery binge for anyone drawn to bleak landscapes, complex investigations and detectives who are never quite able to escape their own pasts.

All three seasons of Hinterland are available to stream on BBC iPlayer.