This time last year, the BBC had viewers riveted with The Serpent, a true-crime drama about a charming jewel thief who sadistically drugged and murdered western tourists in Southeast Asia. Had Covid not got there first, it might have led to a whole generation of potential travellers sticking their backpacks on Depop. Fresh into the new-born arms of 2022 arrives another globe-trotting story with The Tourist in which a man (initially called The Man and played by Northern Irishman Jamie Dornan) is forced off a dusty road in the Australian wilderness by a massive truck. He wakes up in hospital only to discover that his memory has been pretty much wiped clean after this malicious hit-and-run (hence his generic moniker) but soon there are less than vague that he may have done some very bad things in a past that is slowly catching up on him.

Among those who begin to enter his fuzzy orbit are killer-for-hire Billy (an imposing Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), a diner waitress Luci (Shalom Brune-Franklin) who seems to know more than she's letting on (though, let's face it, most people in The Tourist give off that impression), an amiable if possibly out-of-her-depth local cop Helen (Danielle Macdonald) with her own personal problems in the shape of a domineering and downright insulting husband-to-be Ethan (Greg Larsen). Then there's a detective on a personal mission (Damon Herriman's Lachlan) and a shady crimelord Kostas (Alex Dimitriades) who may or may not be pulling everyone's strings.

Talking of fuzzy orbits, Dornan (as per his serial killer in The Fall) is adorned with a reasonably trimmed beard which inexplicably goes in and out of various states of unkemptness across the drama's six episodes. He also wears the same brown t-shirt during this misadventure yet no one seems to be repelled by getting close to what must be an extremely ripe item of clothing by the finale.

While Emily In Paris has managed to upset everyone from Ukraine's culture minister to the entire population of France's capital city, Australians are unlikely to be enamoured with the portrayal here of their rural folks as variously doddery, useless, clumsy and downright mean. Still, be grateful that this isn't an Emily-style offshoot, and that no one actually wears a corked hat. With its wilfully quirky sequences and characters, The Tourist has resoundingly clear echoes of Twin Peaks, Breaking Bad and TV Fargo. And while it's both pleasing on-the-eye and entertaining enough in its twists and turns, this drama, like The Man's memory, is also unlikely to be recalled as the year progresses.

The Tourist airs on BBC One, Sundays, 9pm; all episodes available now on BBC iPlayer.