Netflix's new UK thriller series seems scarily realistic – and potentially great

It's been one of those pleasing cultural developments over the last decade or so that, despite the increasingly huge global reach of all the best streaming services you could choose from right now, there's still a massive footprint for UK projects, shows and movies. We might not be the biggest country in terms of population, but we still know how to produce great telly.

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So, it's never a huge surprise when Netflix unveils a trailer for a new show that looks like it could easily have been a BBC or Channel 4 production a decade ago – and that's how I'd describe Legends. This crime show takes a fictionalised look at how the police enlisted the UK border force to fight drug trafficking back in the 1990s. Now it's got a first trailer, embedded below for you.

Legends | Official Trailer | Netflix - YouTube

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The show looks pretty fascinating, based on an apparently true story of how the government decided that its overstretched resources needed more manpower to infiltrate drug-running organisations. It turned to customs officials to offer them the chance to train for undercover work, and Legends takes a look at how that whole process might have felt from the inside.

We see a group of customs officials, including the excellent Tom Burke in what looks like a leading role, as they learn more about what they're expected to do, and get trained up in covert skills despite backgrounds that don't really suggest an aptitude for the work. Crucially, their handler seems to be played by Steve Coogan, who's arguably the biggest name in the show.

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It looks like a fascinating story, though, and from the trailer there's every chance that the production levels are high enough to look properly convincing – not least because we're going to see some foreign settings as the team's undercover work escalates. The human angle of people trying to prove they can do more than others might assume is a really nice hook, too.

This will be a limited series, so only six episodes in total, and it'll drop on Netflix on 7 May, giving you a little less than a month before it's ready to watch. If you're in the mood for a fun but extremely tense story, I have a feeling this could be a safe bet when it arrives.