There are certain TV shows that would actually make a great deal more sense if it were revealed that one of the stars was secretly an alien. Mrs Brown’s Boys, The Rest Is Football, anything involving David Walliams or James Corden. But the switcheroo doesn’t work on Sugar. Too clever by half, the script pulls the rug out from under Farrell by explaining that his hard-bitten detective routine is an adaptation mechanism gleaned from black-and-white movies.
This space opera is on much firmer ground when it sticks to the basics of the crime genre, which it does in the early episodes as Sugar trawls LA for the missing brother (Raymond Lee). He is drawn into a tangled web that brings him into contact with a local street hustler, Val (Sasha Calle), and a mercurial cop played with pantomime menace by Better Call Saul’s Tony Dalton.
Farrell understands the assignment – the noir part anyway – and embraces the gumshoe stereotypes with gusto. There is surely no other actor alive better suited to grainy voice-overs delivered as he cruises around sun-bleached LA in a 1966 Corvette Stingray. So it’s a shame that gravity finally asserts itself and the series is dragged down into sci-fi silliness and a convoluted plot involving Sugar’s missing sister (also an alien). When it plays it straight, this neo-noir treat serves up the black stuff with style.
Sugar continues on Fridays on Apple TV