TV is better than film. There we’ve said it and our word is final.

With all the meaningless crap released in cinemas this year that accolade wouldn’t be hard but the sheer quality of TV series broadcast over the last twelve months was simply staggering. Selecting one from such a robust field of worthy competitors, (Game Of Thrones, The Killing, Justified, American Horror Story, Dexter, Breaking Bad, Community, Archer, The Venture Bros, Luther), wasn’t a simple task and as we’ve already cheated by handing out a joint honour in our favourite movie of the year we decided to bite the bullet and pick out a single winner.

For us the French crime series Braquo, which aired for the first time on British TV on FX, left quite an impression on us. Think 24 blended with The Shield and now throw in copius amounts of ciggarettes, bottles of wine, worn leather jackets and acts of sporadic voilence. It stars  Jean-Hugues Anglade who continually reminds us of Roy Scheider and was created by former French policeman and film director Olivier Marchal, (Tell No One, Department 36), Braquo rattles along like so:

A squad of Paris cops who exist in the blurred boundaries at the very edge of the law, use violence and intimidation to get the job done. The lives of these officers change radically when their squad leader, falsely accused of corruption, commits suicide. Determined to clear his name they start an investigation of their own, only to find that the police department itself stands in their way.