The Best TV Shows on ČT1

Czech Century brings the key moments of the history of the Czech nation from 1918 to 1989.

A Prague police unit reopens time‑critical cold cases before the statute of limitations runs out, pairing a seasoned loner with a principled young detective to re‑examine old evidence and pursue new leads across real city locations.

Set in Czechoslovakia, the drama follows the lives of its characters against the backdrop of real historical events that shape their personal stories. To evoke period atmosphere, the series intersperses authentic clips from vintage Czechoslovak film newsreels, using their original commentaries or newly recorded historical voice-overs by Vladimír Fišer. A narrator, initially voiced by Vojtěch Kotek and later by Matěj Hádek, provides continuity and reflection, guiding viewers through changing times. Under the guidance of screenwriter Rudolf Merkner, each episode’s script weaves family and individual dramas into key moments of Czech and Slovak history: political shifts, cultural trends, and social transformations from the 1960s onward.

Finding the body of the regional politician Karas, killed in the spirit of medieval torture and carefully arranged in a strange scene, unleash police hunt for a sadistic perpetrator. He puts investigation team in the way of a complex series of murders that shake the local region and criminologists themselves.

Detective Kunes has a problem once again: he's lambasted the boyfriend of his ex-wife, and is threatened with dismissal from the police service. His high-ranking (female) boss has a solution for him: "removing" him on an internships in a back-of-beyond borderland region. But there's a fly in the ointment. His real mission is to unravel the two-year old case of the murder of policewoman Wágnerová, the investigation of which has reached an impasse. But the crime rate in the borderlands is one of the highest in the whole country - involving smuggling, drug production, poaching, prostitution and murders. Kunes has to deal with one difficult case after another, and it takes quite some time before he can start doing what he's sent to do, and then he does it in fact by coincidence.