The chilling but brilliant premise

NYPD profiler Malcolm Bright has a gift. He knows how killers think and how their minds work.

But it’s because he was raised by a notorious serial killer known as The Surgeon, so you could say murder is the family business.

Now, Malcolm’s dad Dr Martin Whitly is locked up - after being convicted of the murders of more than 20 people - and the homicidal-yet-oddly-loving father is still trying to bond with his son.

Prodigal Son's creators Chris Fedak and Sam Sklaver describe the show as “delightfully disturbing”.

The thought-provoking twist

A complex and often outrageous character, Malcolm feels normal when he solves cases with the NYPD. The more twisted, the better.

But when it looks like there is a copycat killer, taking inspiration from The Surgeon, Malcolm finds that his dear old dad could be his best resource to solve the case.

Spending more time with his dad, Malcolm struggles with the idea that he may have inherited his father’s darkness.

“We’re rooting for a guy who, in the back of our mind, some may just wonder if he could end up being a killer too,” Sklaver told IGN.

The killer cast

The Walking Dead’s Tom Payne plays the tortured profiler Malcolm. No stranger to onscreen death, the English actor’s TWD character Paul ‘Jesus’ Rovia was killed off in the show’s 9th season.

He stars opposite prolific Welsh actor Michael Sheen, who has played everything from a vampire (The Twilight Saga) to a prime minister (Tony Blair in The Queen) and an angel (Good Omens). He also played pioneer of human sexuality Dr William Masters in Masters of Sex. This time he’s playing a doctor of a different kind – Bright’s serial killer father Martin, aka The Surgeon.

The series also stars Longmire’s Lou Diamond Phillips as Malcolm’s mentor NYPD Detetive Gil Arroyo, Scandal’s Bellamy Young as his mother Jessica, and The Orville’s Halston Sage as his sister, TV journalist Ainsley.

It's an illuminating look at human psychology

Like the Netflix drama Mindhunter, Prodigal Son is a fascinating look into the minds of killers and one in particular who has two contradictory sides – a homicidal maniac and a loving father.

Martin is described as intelligent and charismatic, but does he really love his family or is the feeling more unhinged?

“Is he truly capable of loving anyone?” co-creator Chris Fedak asks, “or is it all just a psychological simulacrum that he’s created and is playing around with?”

Sheen has also said he watched a doco about notorious British doctor and killer Harold Shipman to prepare for the series.

It’s like House, but with murder

Remember cantankerous doctor Gregory House? Well the show's creators wrote the character of Malcolm Bright with him in mind. He’s a main character who could be tough to like at times, but whose trauma you still care about.

Like House, Prodigal Son will also have a case of the week – it will just be more gruesome. “With House MD, it was about diagnosing a sickness,” Fedak told TV Guide. “This show is about diagnosing a psychology. This is very much Sherlock Freud. Essentially trying to figure out why does the mind work this way? Why would a person do this?”