Forget everything the 2011 film taught audiences about Green Lantern. Lanterns feel like an apology.

DC Studios has taken one of its most imaginative properties and made the unexpected decision not to begin among the stars, but on the ground. What emerges is part murder mystery, part character study, with enough cosmic unease lurking underneath to remind us that something much larger is coming.

Aaron Pierre is superb as John Stewart. There is weight behind his performance; he doesn’t play John as somebody overwhelmed by receiving extraordinary power. Instead, you believe this is a man questioning whether the institution handing him that power deserves his trust.

Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan is fascinating, precisely because he isn’t the pristine superhero some viewers may expect. He’s experienced, stubborn and clearly carrying history that has damaged him. Chandler and Pierre’s chemistry becomes the heartbeat of the programme; the True Detective influence is impossible to ignore. The Nebraska setting gives Lanternsan atmosphere rarely associated with Green Lantern: empty roads, uncomfortable conversations and the sense that something deeply unnatural has found its way into ordinary America.

Yet this is also my biggest concern: Green Lantern should eventually feel enormous. The Corps represents thousands of worlds and possibilities limited only by imagination. If Lanterns becomes so obsessed with being grounded that it becomes embarrassed by its comic book origins, DC will have misunderstood the property all over again.

But right now? It works.

The shocking revelation surrounding Hal immediately tells us this series is willing to take risks, while John Stewart finally receives the live action prominence the character has deserved for decades.

Lanterns doesn’t feel like another superhero show; it feels like HBO made a detective drama and somebody handed its detectives the most powerful weapons in the universe.