When it comes to TV watching there has long been a strong Eurosceptic streak in the British and at first glance it's hard to take issue with this. A hotel bedroom channel-hopping spree in many of the continent's capitals gives a bewildering viewing experience that makes The Fast Show's Channel 9 look highbrow and leaves you insanely grateful for being raised with the BBC as standard. Nonetheless, over time European TV has raised its game and there now exists an active thirst for Swedish, Danish, French and Belgian dramas that are practically sucked down the Channel Tunnel by the gaping maw of Brit love. So with the post-Olympics comedown in full swing here are our five essential European boxsets for those traditional locked-in British summer nights.
Spiral
On the one hand a ballsy police drama featuring unethical but sympathetic cops and on the other a brilliant portrayal of a worryingly convincing gears-within-gears, palm-greasing French justice system, Spiral is the show that made France feel good about evidence tampering again and raised the profile of French TV continent-wide. At turns smart, funny and thrilling, Spiral has the noteworthy side effect of making you vow never to commit a minor traffic infringement (or even set foot) in Paris ever again.
Matrioshki
It's not a laugh a minute but over two series this uncompromising Belgian drama shines a light into the hovels of the Eastern European sex trade in 20 hours of compelling television. It follows the fates of the girls tricked into slavery and kept there by debt bondage, the infighting among the soulless traffickers profiting from the misery, and the efforts of journalist Nico Maes to expose the trade. Although it can veer towards the sensationalist, scenes from Matrioshki were used in a video Amnesty International screened in Eastern European schools to illustrate the techniques used by the slavers, making it one of those rare dramas that may have actually made a difference.
The Bridge
With its recent terrestrial TV outing on BBC4 a big success The Bridge was able to rival The Killing's place in the hearts of devotees of Scandinavian neo-noir. The show featured the oddest of odd couple cop pairings: affable womanising alcoholic Danish schlub Martin and icy blonde straight-talking socially inept Swede Saga, who must pool their resources and considerable talents to stop a relentless and baffling terror campaign from a shadowy figure dubbed the Truth Terrorist. Beautifully soundtracked and chillingly shot The Bridge has comedy, pathos, heartbreak and real palpitation-inducing fear to fuel a quirky but engrossing whodunnit.
The Kingdom (Riget)
His movie work confirms it is a strange bleak world that Lars von Trier inhabits but among the many oddities of his Danish TV miniseries The Kingdom, is a warmth and humour not often associated with the director. Set in the neurosurgical ward of Copenhagen's Rigshospitalet, the show's supernatural goings-on, medical malpractice and Greek chorus commentary provided by three dishwashers with Down's Syndrome, place it somewhere in that rarely explored hinterland between Twin Peaks and Holby City. His films attract their share of critics but an evening spent ploughing through The Kingdom will remind you why everybody loves a Trier.
Heimat
That Stanley Kubrick was a huge fan of Heimat and hung a framed still from the show above his desk gives you an indication of the esteem in which this German epic is held. Lauded to the rafters and absurdly ambitious, Heimat sets out to chronicle German life between 1919 and 2000 and achieves it masterfully over three seasons and 53 hours, combining everything engaging about soap opera with everything absorbing about arthouse cinema. That rare combination of highbrow and lowbrow is the defining feature of the miniseries and in showing how ordinary Germans were affected by the tumultuous events of the 20th century, it gives the historical upheaval both a context and a face.
