★★★★☆

Things turn sour onboard a flight from Dubai to London, when criminals take over the plane at gunpoint. Updating those classic 1970s disaster films like The Poseidon Adventure or The Towering Inferno, Hijack goes for a similar one-big-team-in-major-danger approach as we watch the manure hit the fan in real time, over seven tense episodes.
A smooth Idris Elba leads his terrified fellow passengers through strategic attempts to survive, using his handy skills as a charming, wily negotiator. The cack-handed hijackers vie for control with power struggles unravelling left, right and centre, among themselves or from have-a-go-heroes in Economy or anxious couples in Business. Max Beesley plays a London detective busy getting a tough time from his new stepson before he gets embroiled in the drama, and Archie Panjabi is a harassed counter-terrorism officer.

As is often the way with action plots, some details are pretty implausible, including a few extremely convenient connections among folks helping out on the ground. But suspend your disbelief from a high altitude about those storytelling tricks and brace (brace!) yourself for a thoroughly thrilling game of wits as everyone tries to outsmart one another without being attacked by snipers, jets, a crazed gunman or that very irritable woman travelling with the rowdy kids. 
New episodes available every Wednesday.