Welcome to your future, maybe. Not many years hence, the implacable posthumans are visiting anarchy on society while the superpowers of the day conduct a continuous war provoked by general economic meltdown. In Japan, however, the fightback is on in Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 . Hope amid the bullets and bombs comes from law-enforcement division Public Security Section 9, whose star agent, Major Motoko Kusanagi, is a cybernetic, enhanced human with looks to match her intellectual and physical prowess (which might explain why Scarlett Johansson played the role in the 2017 live-action movie, in which Wellington, New Zealand, doubled for Hong Kong). Based on Shirow Masamune’s Ghost in the Shell manga and 1995 cult anime film adaptation, this second Netflix series, like its predecessor, might still resemble a video game in its graphics, but that does nothing to derail the shoot-’em-up, mind-hacking action or, however bizarrely, viewers’ identification with the good guys (or good semi-synthetics). Which brings us to the question of “engineering”: at what point does a being lose its “human” classification and pass the tipping point into becoming a product? At 51 per cent implanted cyberware? And then, who’s pulling their electronic strings? As for identifying the real bad guys: it doesn’t take long for Section 9 to discover that an operative with a Russian-sounding name has been killed by polonium poisoning by his own government, which is a straight lift from the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. And although that might seem like handy timing in view of the desecration of Ukraine, the big, bad “American Empire” is also called to account here as it becomes clear that the National Security Agency is responsible for certain dodgy types of artificial intelligence ripe for military application. One AI creation states correctly that “war is the most efficient form of economic activity”, so when we are finally committed to perpetual conflict, at least we’ll be able to bristle with, er, personal hardware and software enhancements and other optional cybernetic extras. Can’t wait. Sun, sea and sure death It is among the Caribbean’s most dangerous places, but appears on no government advisories. Global megastars rent clifftop retreats with every designer luxury, yet its most capable police officer lives in a tatty beach shack. With a lizard called Harry. Yes, it’s the island of Saint Marie, fictional home of Honoré Police Station, with its British detective but uniformed officers wearing a version of the French tricolour. Saint Marie is also an equal-opportunity perilous Eden in which, be they gigolo or government minister, birdwatcher or backpacker, skydiver or surfer, all stand the same chance of being murdered, a homicide unfailingly taking place there every week. Series 11, no less, of Death in Paradise (BBC First, now showing), features Ralf Little continuing in the role of Detective Inspector Neville Parker, the island’s second top police officer to crafty Commissioner Selwyn Patterson (the droll Don Warrington, of Rising Damp fame). Neurotic, querulous, fussy, allergy prone and more vampire than sun worshipper, pasty-white Brit abroad Parker is the latest point man in a line of police-force oddballs, which, more than any other aspect, gives the faintly comic crime series the feel-good factor it has radiated (despite all the death) since it began in 2011. After his own fashion, Parker is an inspired sleuth and can always be counted on to crack the most perplexing crimes; but can he cope with being yanked out of his pedant’s comfort zone and into the terrifying arena of potential romance? Will a prospective fling with Detective Sergeant Florence Cassell (Josephine Jobert) prove a case beyond his comprehension?