Eight years on, Vic McQueen receives shocking news about Charlie Manx, Maggie consults her tiles at great risk and Bing hunts down the Wraith.

AMC’s adaptation of Joe King’s 2013 Bram Stoker Award-nominated horror novel returns eight years later, finding our characters in very different places. Vic is now the young mother of eight-year-old son Wayne, she lives with Lou, and things are just about OK. And then comes the news that she equally wanted and feared – that her nemesis, the vampiric Charlie Manx has finally died in custody.

But Vic, who has special powers, just can’t believe it, and catches up with equally gifted Maggie to see if her magic Scrabble tiles can confirm it’s true. As a jumping on point, the script does what it can to bring in the concepts of knives entering the inscape and using the shorter way as a portal. And it’s not long before Vic is on her Triumph motorbike, desperate to discover if Manx can still hurt her and her family.

It’s a wise move using this episode to re-establish Vic (an excellent Ashleigh Cummings), with Zachary Quinto’s Manx spending the hour on a mortuary slab. But it doesn’t linger too long before the jeopardy quotient is upped as Manx’s henchman Bing Partridge starts the resurrection process (the Rolls Royce Wraith needs an engine, not a floral installation) and the bad guys are back in business.

Verdict: An exciting season opener that welcomes us back to the world of Hill’s child-snatching bogeyman. Manx is a hideous creation and I can’t wait to see Vic squaring up against him again to put this evil finally to rest… hopefully! 8/10

Nick Joy