The fifth season of Astrid: Murder in Paris is due to reappear on More4 in the UK from 23 January 2026. Here at Crime Fiction Lover, our previous articles about this show have gone down a storm with readers so we know folks are going to love it. You’ll also be able to stream the eight-episode season via Channel 4’s overseas crime drama channel Walter Presents.
Here’s the skinny. This hugely popular programme is made in France under the title Astrid et Raphaëlle and appears here with English subtitles. Astrid Nielson, played by Sara Mortensen, is the character who really engages audiences. She works in the police archives in Paris, has a near-photographic memory, is an obsessive puzzle solver, and is neurodiverse. Her special skills make her the perfect assistant to Detective Raphaëlle Lacoste, and together they solve murders in the French capital, and beyond.
But it’s rarely smooth sailing and season five opens with the murder of a Canadian woman who’s innocently eating her lunch by the Seine. When Raphaëlle, Astrid and the police team working on the case find out that the woman was living under an assumed name, they find themselves on the trail of a highly skilled assassin called The Reptile. Soon other forces are at play – the CIA and France’s Directorate General of External Security included. Our intrepid investigators enlist as secret agents – because whoever killed the woman is involved in international espionage.
The storyline continues from episode one into episode two, and involves kidnapping, burner phones, vans full of surveillance tech, poison darts and deep fakes, among other things. It’s a plot cleverly challenges Astrid’s inability to lie, with laugh-out-loud consequences and if it weren’t for Raphaëlle, she would be the world’s worst state security operative.
On the other side of the coin, Raphaëlle is quite advanced with minor deceptions and her latest secret is one that may have a big impact on the series. She might be pregnant. When Astrid learns of this, it puts her on edge. Because of her autism, she is nervous about anything that might upset her relationship with her friend and disrupt their established routines.
Astrid will be challenged in other ways too. Her friend Tatsuo, with whom she has formed a relationship, has learned that his visa might not be renewed. It’s something else that might upset Astrid as she struggles to maintain stability. Luckily, her self-help group of fellow neurodiverse people still meets and her friends there are ready to support her, as is Raphaëlle.
Like previous seasons, the storylines are short, typically lasting one or two episodes. The tone is light and the pace is quick moving, with the dialogue doing a lot of heavy lifting to keep viewers up to date with new clues and developments in each case. This time out, the detectives will investigating the death of an archaeologist killed in a fashion relating to Aztec ritual. There’s the murder of a Mormon too, and this time the crime reflects things that happened to the founder of the Latter Day Saints, Joseph Smith. Astrid and Raphaëlle will even try to catch a suspected werewolf in Paris. And there’s plenty more.
What viewers love is the surprising new perspectives on life that are reflected through Astrid. While everyday communication can be challenging for her, she can solve complex problems quickly and wonders why others can’t keep up. Her inability to read the emotions of others leads to her own feelings often being hurt. She’s a character who receives tremendous sympathy. And all of that feeling is wrapped up in a crime show that delivers wildly diverse mysteries thick and fast, with a busy modern Paris as the backdrop.
This fifth season consists of eight hour-long episodes. You can catch up with the entire series, subtitled, via this link.
