EXCLUSIVE: Jason Watkins comments, “The cat and mouse dynamic is extremely excellent.” Robson Green continues, “It is a game where these two men are almost stalking each other.”

The two are discussing the main character in the Channel 5 miniseries Catch You Later, where Watkins, who starred in The Crown, plays a retired police officer named Huw Miller. Miller is troubled by the one case he was unable to solve, which was that of a stalker who tormented his community and played with his victims before killing them. Three simple phrases lead Miller to believe his new neighbor is the murderer when Patrick Harbottle (Green) moves into a house on his neighborhood that was recently vacant after the occupant unexpectedly passes away.

“Huw feels like he has his guy because of the way Patrick says, ‘catch you later,'” adds Green, star of shows like Strike Back and Grantchester. Huw believes that everything is not quite as it seems, and Patrick is overly amiable. It becomes evident very quickly that a game is being played, but is Patrick a stalker and is Huw’s mental state improving or degenerating?”

This starts the game of cat and mouse, where Miller and Harbottle, a man who seems to be friendly and makes friends with many of the villagers, play around with what might or might not be true. The spectator is left wondering whether Harbottle is innocent or not for a large portion of the four-part series. As Miller suffers, his wife, played by Sunetra Sarker (Desperate Measures), suffers as well.

Green goes on, “The incredible thing that transpires in this series is Huw’s surrender, which is expertly portrayed by Jason, and whether Patrick is only a kind man who cares about his well-being or if he is mentally tormenting him.” The audience will question his intentions.

It is interesting to note that Green and Watkins have previously portrayed enemies on screen. Green portrayed a werewolf who battled the vampire Watkins in an episode of the BBC show Being Human’s third season. Even further back in time, they had a screen appearance in the 1991 Soldier Soldier episode of the ITV drama, but this time they were army officers on the same side.

Watkins attributes the creative spark that he believes will captivate viewers to writer Tom Grieves, whose credits include Being Human. He claims that “good writing is about putting explosive components together.” For Huw, that entails retiring. Although he has had a successful career as a copper, there are still unresolved issues. He believes that the attempt to apprehend this rather ruthless individual has failed. We are currently catching him since it has tormented him.

On Tuesday, February 25, Sphere Abacus will present the series at its London TV Screenings event. As the go-to producer for Ben Frow’s low-budget, high-reward drama strategy at Channel 5, Mike Benson’s Clapperboard Studios has carved out a distinctive niche for itself in British written television. Clapperboard is responsible for a number of programs that were produced on comparatively low costs and have sold successfully both domestically and abroad. Coma, a Channel 5 drama from Roughcut TV about a family who faces a bunch of adolescents, starring Watkins, who won BAFTA Best Actor for the two-part true crime drama The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies.

“Channel 5 gave us the wonderful treatment that Tom Grieves had provided,” remembers Benson, the popular creator and CEO of Clapperboard. They commissioned the project from the treatment after falling in love with it. In the industry, that is uncommon, but not at Channel 5. They enjoy moving quickly.

Benson, who, like many others, has found budgeting drama at any price increasingly difficult in recent months, chose to shoot in Spain’s Basque Country in order to make the money work. Watkins and Green’s casting helped secure funding, but it also meant “learning the ropes in terms of production infrastructure” and the difficulty of finding crew and locations in a region that was overflowing with rival projects.

The largest obstacle, according to Benson, was something far more pragmatic. The procedure of releasing the Bilbao Bizkaia tax incentive, which is up an eye-watering 70% for some projects, was “extremely regulated.” Aspirational homes and council estates tend to look the same everywhere, but British suburbia and its cul-de-sacs don’t, which was our main concern because we watch a lot of Channel 5 dramas.

Benson is always frustrated by the UK’s drama tax credit for expensive TV shows, arguing that it should support a greater variety of projects, particularly given that broadcasters are cutting back on spending and distributors are less inclined to invest in risky episodes over “cozy crime.” “We should be able to make these four-parters in the UK, because we set shows in places of the UK where they want production,” he says, repeating himself a little.

“There is nothing I would rather do than film the shows in their respective settings. It all comes down to risk tolerance at this financial level. Overspending is always a possibility. We have volume, so we have been prepared to accept it. It is dangerous to work on one of these series alone; you might profit in the long run, but it will be two or three years from now. We can safeguard margins across the board because to our agreement with Channel 5, but even so, it is challenging to make these budgets work.

The equation has been further disrupted by the United States’ reduction in co-productions. “A strong American sale is the foundation of most MGs, and if you do not have it, you are looking at the rest of the world,” he says. “Getting the necessary MGs has been a true issue.”