The smartest detective series on Netflix right now isn’t the one you think

Crime series are one of the most popular kinds of TV shows on at the moment, and anyone interested has tons of options to choose from. Netflix has eagerly embraced the genre, with series like Narcos, Ozark, and the Monster series all building huge fanbases.

But with so many such series, it’s easy for new ones to fly under the radar. Million-Follower Detective, a new series that dropped on Thursday, February 12, is one such show. This smart, digestible Taiwanese potboiler is very much worth your time.

Million-Follower Detective is up-to-the-minute

A crime show set in 2026

Million-Follower Detective mainly follows a veteran detective named Chen Chia-jen (Ekin Cheng). At the start of the show, a man approaches a police station in Taipei wearing a mask and wielding a gun. He’s presumed dangerous, and Chia-jen shoots him. But it’s revealed that the man was only wielding a BB gun. He’s an influencer named Yen Wei (Kent Tsai), and video of him getting shot goes viral and turns public opinion against the police.

That’s our introduction to one of the themes this show plays with throughout its run: influencer culture and how it shapes modern policing. Influencers are as powerful as traditional celebrities were in times past, and YouTube is quickly replacing TV. It’s nice to see a show that engages with these kinds of shifts so directly.

Chia-jen, who was already on thin ice before this incident, is assigned to look into the case. He’s paired up with a younger officer named Li Hsin-ping (Patty Lee) who connects the incident to another influencer named Witch Baba, who wears a mask in her videos. Witch Baba makes predictions about influencers who are going to die, and her success rate is eerily high. The quest from there is simple: find Witch Baba and untangle the mystery.

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Also involved is an influencer named Ting-Yu Lin (Jun-Shuo Lou), the titular million-follower detective, who takes it upon himself to investigate the case from the outside. That also dovetails with a trend we see a lot in the real world where amateur detectives will investigate real crimes for the sake of content.

Million-Follower Detective is also comfortingly conventional

A crime show that feels familiar and comforting

Million-Follower Detective engages with modern subject matter, but at base, this is a meat-and-potatoes crime drama that anyone familiar with the genre should feel at home watching. Pairing the experienced cop with the fresh-faced rookie is a very old trope, and Million-Follower Detective gets a lot of mileage out of the contrast between how Chia-jen and Hsin-ping approach their work. Chia-jen nicely fits the brooding, lone wolf cop mold also filled by John Luther in Luther, Elliot Stabler in Law & Order: SVU, and many others.

There’s also a personal angle. Chia-jen is struggling to maintain his relationship with stepdaughter Chen You-jie (Chen Yan-fei), which has been rocky ever since his wife died a few years earlier. Injecting some family drama into the show keeps it grounded and helps round out the characters, letting us see who they are outside of work and making it easy to get attached.

Although it can get very intense, Million-Follower Detective ultimately has a happy ending. And at eight episodes of around 45 minutes apiece, the show is a relatively quick watch. So even though it’s pushing the boundaries in some ways, Million-Follower Detective is very watchable.

Million-Follower Detective has solid acting and action

Although the editing may take some getting used to

The acting in Million-Follower Detective is rock solid throughout. Particular praise must go to Lee Lee-Zen, who plays Chia-jen’s boss Chen-Wei He; and to Bo-Chieh Wang, who plays a vengeful doctor named Ta-Fu Kuo. Although everyone does fine work, they steal pretty much every scene they’re in.

Million-Follower Detective also has some terrific action scenes. One involving Chia-jen fighting for his life on the hood of a moving car has to be seen to be believed. The costumes, makeup, and set design are all a cut above the norm. Taipei feels vibrant and alive.

One thing that may put off some people is the rapid editing style Million-Follower Detective uses to evoke social media platforms like TikTok. This choice is rooted in the themes of the show, but it’s one thing to have this kind of brisk editing in a 30-second TikTok short vs a 45-minute episode of television. It risks overloading the senses, but it may not bother everyone. And even if it bothers you, the rewards of the show are worth pushing past it to find.

More great detective shows on Netflix

While Million-Follower Detective is a worthy new detective series on Netflix, it’s probably not the vest best one the streaming service has produced; I think that award still goes to Mindhunter, which probably has it sewn up for the foreseeable future. But it’s great to see fresh new shows like Million-Follower Detective make their case.