Non-stop action on HBO: True Detective, Ballers, The Brink

Last year's True Detective was a chillingly dark and disturbing highlight in what was a pretty fine 12 months for television dramas. Both Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey rightly received best actor Emmy nominations for their portrayals of Louisiana police officers, Marty Hart and Rust Cohle, respectively, on the hunt for a ritualistic serial killer. It was an intense and haunting delve into the human psyche, and proved to be a dazzling display of televisual storytelling - one that would be difficult to better.

We'll see whether the second series of True Detective can do so tomorrow, on HBO, at 9am (repeated at 9pm). The new season lacks Skinny and Woody and the whole big bag of voodoo, but has an equally impressive cast of Hollywood A-listers.

Foremost among them is Colin Farrell ( In Bruges), who plays the hard-drinking and hard-nosed Ray Velcoro, a compromised Californian detective who the Irish actor calls "a bit of a burnout". Velcoro is scarred by some rather dubious choices he's made and we quickly find out that one in particular has him in deep debt to big-time criminal Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn; Wedding Crashers). The occultish murder of Semyon's business partner brings Velcoro and the mobster together with uncompromising sheriff Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams; The Notebook) and highway patrolman Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch; The Normal Heart), as they investigate a web of corruption and betrayal.

As with the first season, this is less about solving the murder and more about what's happening with the characters, as each of them wrestles with their demons.

Neo-noir screenwriter Nic Pizzolatto has again penned all eight episodes, with promises of "cosmic horror" - "Nic explores the darkness in people's souls," explains HBO's president of programming, Michael Lombardo. "It's not as dark [as the last series], but it's not a light ride".

This time around, a revolving cast of directors has taken the big chair, with Taiwanese-born American filmmaker Justin Lin (TV show Community and a few of The Fast and the Furious movies) handling the first two episodes.

Farrell and McAdams are superb but, even though I've been a big fan of big Vince since his Swingers days, his thug-turned-businessman just doesn't strike me as that threatening. Who knows, though, maybe by the series' conclusion, we'll have realised he's not yet showing his true colours.