Director: Rick Jacobson
A quiet janitor mopping the halls of a New Zealand police station carries a secret far darker than anyone around him could guess in "Dark City: The Cleaner", a 2024 crime drama from director Rick Jacobson.
What is Dark City The Cleaner about?
Joe spends his days pushing a mop through the corridors of a Christchurch police station, unnoticed by the officers who pass him. At night he becomes someone else entirely, a figure the local press has nicknamed The Carver after a string of killings that have gripped the city. When a fresh murder turns up bearing all the hallmarks of the case, detectives naturally assume their man has struck again. Joe alone understands that whoever committed this latest crime is not him, which forces him into the strange position of tracking a copycat while staying invisible to the very investigators he works alongside every day. The series leans into that tension between routine and menace, following Joe as he moves through interrogation rooms and evidence lockers gathering pieces of a puzzle the police cannot see because they are looking for the wrong man.
Cast & crew
Cohen Holloway anchors the series in the lead role, working opposite Chelsie Preston Crayford, Robbie Magasiva, and Elizabeth Hawthorne, with David de Lautour, Hannah Marshall, Dea Doglione, and Jordan Mooney rounding out the station's staff and the investigators circling the case.
Context & significance
Produced in New Zealand, the show unfolds against the backdrop of Christchurch, using the city's police procedures and press coverage as the engine for its cat-and-mouse structure. Genre-wise it sits between workplace drama and crime thriller, less interested in shootouts than in the slow accumulation of small lies a person tells to keep two lives separate. The series carries a strong IMDb score of 6.9, reflecting steady interest from crime drama audiences drawn to its premise.
Where & how to watch
"Dark City: The Cleaner" streams on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles available, so viewers can follow every twist in Farsi. The show's page is free to read without an account; watching the episodes themselves just needs a quick K-Time login, part of a Farsi-first viewing experience built for Persian-speaking audiences.