So, let’s make that two recent shows with sociopaths as protagonists. First, we had Dexter, with a serial killer trying to pass as regular human. And now we have John Mercer, who’s killed his aunt and uncle. But don’t worry, he did it with good intent because they were abusing his sister. Welcome to the morally confused world of The Fixer.

That moral confusion goes all the way round in ITV’s new Monday night thriller series. John is sprung from jail early to do a hit on behalf of a shady ex senior cop who needs someone to do wetwork as part of his anti-crime initiative. He’s partnered in this endeavour by Calum, his cheery chavvy former cellmate, who can get you anything from dodgy computer games to East European firearms. Oh, and Rose, who was there mainly to provide someone for John to sleep with when he thought he was going to escape his new employers, mostly to show how amoral this little crew is. Their leader is an older guy called Lenny who reminded me a bit of Gordon Jackson, and that’s when all this fell into place for me: The Fixer is a noughties version of The Professionals.

Way back when, The Professionals ran with the police, and did manly things together to fight crime. Only, we’re living in a different world now. At any rate, the Daily Mail would have us believe that’s the case. And The Fixer is proof positive of my theory that one way to develop primetime ITV drama is to pretend that the Mail is true, and write programmes that respond to its agenda. Hence, last night, we had a checklist of Mail reader fascinations. Crime getting out of hand so the police can’t control it. Check. East European migrants. Check. The need for capital punishment, in the form of gun squads controlled by rogue senior cops. Hmm, not sure that’s Mail editorial yet, but check anyway. Young men in need of ASBOs to control them. Check. A soupcon of child abuse. Check. Women behaving like ladettes. Check.

Thankfully, the element of formula is only there on second investigation. When you’re actually watching it, The Fixer feels fresh because it’s very well written, and astutely cast. The dialogue in particular is a delight, particularly the banter from wideboy Calum, who can’t understand why John isn’t pleased to be out of choky and behaving like a member of a South American death squad. There was a lovely exchange to establish that John is a bright guy, which actually managed to touch on Schrodinger’s Cat without making me cringe, since it’s usually a case of the writer showing off and not understanding it. Here, it actually worked, and sounded in character, and that deserves a prize of some kind.

The story hit all the beats you’d expect it to in the circumstances. After doing his hit, on a nasty piece of work who thinks he’s above the law but didn’t bank on being assassinated in a toilet, John tries to get out of the situation he’s in. He makes a bolt for it, via sleeping with Rose and nicking her money and bank card, and thinks he’s got away with it, until it transpires that Rose is working for Lenny too, who was three moves ahead the whole time. Back to square one, and episode two. I’ll be watching again, because if the scripts are as refreshing as this first one was, The Fixer is shaping up to be a contender for ITV’s best new thriller for a while, with enough lethal vigilante action to keep Mail readers happy, and sufficient moral ambiguity and smart dialogue for those of us who like to think we’re above summary justice.