NETFLIX VIEWERS ‘HOOKED’ ON NEW CRIME DRAMA TEMPLE: “BEST SERIES OF THE YEAR” — A SURGEON’S ILLEGAL CLINIC, CRIMINAL CLIENTS, AND A CLIFFHANGER THAT DEMANDS SEASON 3
It starts with a heartbeat on a monitor — flatlining. A surgeon’s hands tremble over a scalpel. Then: a gunshot in the dark, a body dragged through London’s Underground tunnels, and a whispered promise: “No questions. Cash only.”
Welcome to Temple — the Sky-turned-Netflix crime-medical thriller that has stormed global charts, earned 92% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, and left viewers screaming “BEST SERIES OF 2025!” in comment sections worldwide.
Originally a 2019 Sky One hidden gem, Temple exploded onto Netflix UK & US in September 2025, instantly hitting #3 in Top 10 and holding for six weeks. Two seasons (16 episodes) of high-stakes surgery, black-market medicine, and moral collapse have turned casual scrollers into binge-zombies, with one Reddit user confessing:
“Started at 9 PM. Finished Season 2 at 4 AM. Slept with the lights on. 10/10.”
This is the complete dossier on the show that’s being called “Breaking Bad meets ER in the London Underground” — from its Norwegian origins to the cliffhanger that has Netflix execs sweating.
ORIGIN STORY: FROM NORWEGIAN CULT HIT TO BRITISH PHENOMENON
Temple is a remake of Norway’s Valkyrien (2017) — a dark comedy-crime drama that won Best Nordic Series at Gothenburg Film Festival. Creator Mark O’Rowe (Boy A, Intermission) saw the original and thought:
“What if Walter White was a surgeon… and his lab was a WWII bunker under London?”
Sky greenlit it in 2018. Filming began in abandoned Tube stations (yes, real ones — Aldwych, disused since 1994). The result? A claustrophobic, neon-lit underworld where life-saving surgery happens next to drug deals.
THE PREMISE: A DOCTOR’S DESPERATE GAMBLE
Dr. Daniel Milton (Mark Strong) is a brilliant thoracic surgeon at a top London hospital. His wife, Beth (Catherine McCormack), is dying of a rare degenerative disease — no cure, no trial, no hope.
