'The Gold' Premieres with a 24k Episode in “To Be a King”

The Brink's-Mat gold heist was one of the defining crimes of the late 20th century in the U.K. Twenty-six million pounds in gold bullion was stolen from a Heathrow airport warehouse. Although many were charged and some served jail time, four of the six thieves who carried out the job have still not been identified 40 years later, and none of the stolen wealth has ever been recovered. Policing in the U.K. was radically altered in the wake of the crime, as was the world of London's underground crime scene, not to mention the actual skyline of the city itself.

Considering that any drama series based on this event is hamstrung by the lack of knowledge about four of the criminals and the non-recovery of the stolen goods, it's somewhat miraculous that The Gold works at all. However, as the series opens, it becomes clear that this "true crime" series isn't really focused on the original crime. The opening minutes of the premiere re-stage the events that led to the theft, running through the sequence of events from the time the thieves arrived at a storage facility at Heathrow.

However, it also emphasizes the awkward elephant in the room: the entire heist was an unplanned accident, and the original six thieves who made off with the three tons of gold bullion were a real-life version of the dog that caught the car.