The Dark on ITV tonight: a twisted Scottish serial killer drama
DIRECT ANSWER: ITV's six-part thriller The Dark premieres tonight at 9pm on ITV1, with all episodes on ITVX. Set in the Scottish Highlands, Laura Donnelly's DI Monica Kennedy hunts a masked serial killer after a staged young man's body is found — a twisted drama that shifts crime-TV conventions away from female victims.
Key Takeaways
- The Dark airs at 9pm on Sunday 12 July on ITV1, with the full series on ITVX; episode two follows on Monday.
- Laura Donnelly and Helen Baxendale star in the adaptation of GR Halliday's novel From the Shadows.
- Writer Matt Hartley chose the project because victims are young men, not the usual young women violently murdered in woods.
- The Guardian TV pick warns viewers may be double-checking the windows are locked by episode one's end.
- Inspirations include True Detective's atmosphere and The Fall's cat-and-mouse dynamic.
What is The Dark about?
If you are scanning TV tonight for a twisted drama about a serial killer in Scotland, ITV's The Dark is the headline pick. The Guardian's TV tonight guide describes an eerie crime drama about a killer who uses twisted techniques in the Scottish wilderness, opening with the line: "There truly is a wicked monster out there."
Laura Donnelly, known from Outlander and The Fall, plays DI Monica Kennedy, who discovers a young man's body in the countryside and realises his older brother went missing years before. As the six episodes unspool, the body count racks up and detectives quickly realise they are dealing with a serial killer.
Why is The Dark different from typical serial killer dramas?
Writer Matt Hartley told Metro that adapting GR Halliday's From the Shadows felt "unturndownable" partly because "it wasn't young women getting massacred in woods." The opening instead echoes True Detective: a naked body, eerily staged in remote wilderness — except the victim is a young man on the cusp of adulthood in the Scottish Highlands.
The Belfast Telegraph highlights the same break from convention in its interview with the Belfast actress on the new ITV serial killer series: it is not the usual young women being violently murdered. Hartley said the story offered a different prism for exploring victimhood, asking how a community reacts when young men in their teens and early twenties start to disappear.
For viewers drawn to true crime and unsolved mysteries, the masked killer is written as a ghostly presence — a face you might glimpse driving past and only later recognise as wrong. Hartley also drew on The Fall's detective-versus-killer tension while funnelling True Detective's landscape and tone into a distinctly British rural thriller.
Who stars in The Dark on ITV?
Beyond Donnelly, Helen Baxendale also features in the cast highlighted by the Guardian's preview. Donnelly's Monica Kennedy is the detective at the centre of the cat-and-mouse hunt, while Hartley describes the killer as an incredibly creepy masked figure designed to haunt both the community and the investigators chasing him.
By the end of the gripping first episode, Hollie Richardson's TV tonight column suggests you will be double-checking the windows are locked. Episode one continues the story on Monday, with the full six-part run available to stream from launch night.
How and when can you watch The Dark?
The Dark premieres tonight, Sunday 12 July 2026, at 9pm on ITV1. Metro confirms the entire six-part series drops on ITVX at the same time, so viewers can binge or follow the scheduled weekly rollout. Halliday's novel is the first in a trilogy, though whether ITV will extend the franchise remains unconfirmed.