Yorkshire, the early 1970s: a county on edge as a series of killings spreads fear across its mill towns and moorland roads. "The Long Shadow" reconstructs that period through the eyes of the people who lived it, not as a whodunit puzzle but as a portrait of a community under siege.
What is The Long Shadow about?
The series follows the years-long hunt for the person behind a string of attacks on women across West Yorkshire, told largely from the perspective of detectives working the case, journalists covering it, and the families of the victims whose names risked being reduced to a headline. Rather than centering the investigation on procedure alone, the show spends real time with the women themselves before tragedy touches their lives, giving the crimes weight instead of treating them as plot mechanics. As leads go cold and public pressure mounts, the series traces how flawed assumptions and overlooked evidence shaped a case that dragged on far longer than anyone in Yorkshire wanted.
About the cast
The ensemble is built around British television regulars: Toby Jones and David Morrissey anchor the investigative side, while Katherine Kelly, Lee Ingleby, Michael McElhatton, Jack Deam, Chloe Harris, and Steven Waddington round out a cast spread across the police, press, and community threads the story weaves together. The size of the cast reflects the show's approach — this is an ensemble piece about a region, not a single-hero procedural.
Context & significance
Director Lewis Arnold, known for character-driven British crime drama, leads the production, which leans into period detail — clothing, newsrooms, police stations — to place viewers firmly in 1970s Yorkshire rather than a generic crime-show backdrop. The historical setting is treated with restraint: the series is interested in how a community absorbed years of fear, not in dramatizing violence for its own sake.
Watching The Long Shadow on Ktime
"The Long Shadow" streams on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, so Farsi-speaking viewers can follow the investigative detail without losing the period texture of the original English performances. Watching requires a free K-Time account login; the film page itself is open to read without one, and the whole experience is built around a Farsi-first interface for the Iranian diaspora audience.