The annals of television appreciation reveal that once upon a time this column postulated that even one regional season of The Bridge , based on the original Swedish-Danish crime-thriller series exported globally ad infinitum, was a bridge too far. Now it seems it wasn’t far enough, because it’s back for a second run. Cross-border foul play remains the foundation, but now the increasingly intriguing plot bridges the gaps between Singapore and Malaysia, and the Malay Peninsula and Jakarta, metaphorically anyway. And whereas the actual Tuas Bridge featured eponymously in series one, this time the grisly murders mount up in the aftermath of some unspeakable violence aboard a yacht. Registered in Singapore, discovered in Johor and containing the bodies of an Indonesian family, the boat is a convenient crucible for the international jurisdictional fight that follows. It also adds regional flavour to ruthless banditry and police ambition and treachery. Not knowing whom to trust, inside or outside the forces for justice, is something that hasn’t changed as the action resumes in the second season. Nor has blunt-speaking, socially awkward detective Serena Teo, credibly played by Rebecca Lim. Teo’s domestic arrangements have changed – to the extent that she is now tolerating, barely, a live-in boyfriend who seems an irritating distraction from her work. Radically altered circumstances are making themselves felt, however, through the character of Megat Jamil (a charmingly shifty Bront Palarae). Floored by family catastrophe at the end of the first season, Megat is now an ex-detective, having embraced the dark side to become an enforcer for an ostensibly respectable crook. Or has he? It remains to be seen whether Megat has really betrayed his badge; but as the savagery continues throughout series two, the ill-gotten drugs gains multiply and human traffickers spread their sordid tentacles, it could be that Megat is slipping so far undercover that he’s forgotten what’s right and what’s rotten. Sleuth for yourself on HBO (Mondays at 9pm) and HBO Go. Alfred Pennyworth gets his own TV show A long time ago, in a batsuit far, far away, Bruce Wayne proved you don’t need a spider’s kiss or atomic makeover to develop special powers of strength, endurance and (largely) good judgment. But he must have derived those attributes from somewhere … Drum roll please for Alfred Pennyworth, ex-Special Air Service soldier and future guardian of Master Wayne throughout his caped capers. But first, the younger Alfred has a bodyguard company to establish. And it is his brain for business that diverts him into the surprisingly insalubrious circles frequented by billionaire Thomas Wayne. Alfred leads his pre-Gotham, late 1960s life in an imaginary but familiar London that looks like it’s still tending to its World War II hangover, and yet oozes Dickensian grubbiness. And for a touch of medieval menace, prisoners are still tortured in the Tower or locked in the stocks as the loony left fights the rabid right for control of Britain. Jack Bannon brings a tough but cheeky Cockney worldliness to the title role of Pennyworth. Idiosyncratic singer (and Londoner) Paloma Faith, as Bet Sykes (another nod to Dickens), wields the scariest Manchester accent since Liam Gallagher’s, stealing scenes with her matter-of-fact malevolence. Join the fun on Warner TV (Now TV channel 510) on Mondays at 9pm. Encores on Mondays at 11.30pm and Saturdays at 11am.