“Trackers,” adapted by a group of South African screenwriters from a novel in Afrikaans by Deon Meyer, was overseen by the British producer Robert Thorogood (the creator of “Death in Paradise”). It’s a more polished product than “Blood & Water,” which has its good and bad sides — “Trackers” is more easily entertaining, and perhaps more easily forgettable. (The lead producer was the South African cable network M-Net, which showed it last year.)

James Gracie, another performer who, like Qamata, can do a lot with silent looks of doubt and reproach, stars as Lemmer, a former cop now reduced to riding shotgun on a truck hauling contraband through the South African night. He occupies about a third of a well-stocked plot that also involves a government counterterrorism unit, a group of Islamic radicals who appear to be in touch with ISIS, and a woman (Rolanda Marais) in flight from her marriage who discovers she has a talent for espionage.

There is a plot afoot that may involve bombing a soccer match, but probably doesn’t, and in which a pair of rare black rhinos may be the world’s heaviest red herring. Through the three episodes available for review, the threads are still separate, including how Lemmer’s troubled past ties in with the past troubles of the spy agency’s director (Sandi Schultz, who also plays the high school principal in “Blood & Water”).

In what could be another effect of the international marketplace — if it’s not just the general approach of current South African popular entertainment — the shows address questions of race and representation, and the legacy of apartheid, in muted ways, if at all.

In “Blood & Water,” one student aggressively and continually demands that the curriculum focus on colonial depredations, in a manner that almost comes across as comic relief. Otherwise, race and history aren’t overt issues (though it’s noticeable that the most sympathetic and well-developed characters in “Trackers,” among the black intelligence agents and possible Muslim terrorists, are the troubled white outsiders played by Gracie and Marais). It’s easy to forget where you are, in between shots of Table Mountain.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/arts/television/netflix-blood-and-water-trackers-cinemax