There’s plenty to be excited about with the New Year starting, not least the exciting new shows set to hit our screens in 2026. Not only do we have Claudia Winkleman's ‘dazzling’ new TV show to look forward to, but Netflix are starting off the year with a bang by dropping an all-new Harlan Coben thriller on New Year's Day – and it stars Ruth Jones in a role like none she’s undertaken before.
Her new Netflix thriller, Run Away, will air on 1 January, 2026, and sees Ruth in the role of Elena Ravenscroft, a private investigator and ex-police firearms officer who is now working with the police to help solve the disappearance of a young girl.
The eight-part 'dark' and 'twisty' series is a far cry from the heartwarming comedy of Gavin & Stacey, with Ruth revealing that she had to undergo 'serious training' and learn how to fire a gun for the role, which rather than being daunting, actually left her feeling 'powerful' in front of the camera.
'We had proper serious training for it, it was all taken very seriously – as it should be, you know,' she told The Radio Times. 'I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t make me feel like a little bit kind of powerful onscreen.'
Putting her training into action on set, there was one scene that left Ruth 'gobsmacked' during filming and it’s a brilliant teaser from the wild action we can expect from Run Away when it airs on Netflix.
'There is a flashback to a gunfight in an abandoned factory which Elena is involved in when she was a firearms officer. That was great fun to shoot. A big warehouse full of these big crates that we had to hide behind then come out shooting,' she said.
'I was gobsmacked at how many people were involved in setting up a scene like that – and I learned what was meant by a ‘squib’ – a fake explosion that mimics gunfire, and shots bouncing off surfaces. I had to be taught how to hold and fire a gun with blanks as that was a first for me. The guns are incredibly loud!'
As with previous Harlan Coben projects, we can expect lots of twists and turns when it comes to Run Away, with red herrings and misdirects planted in each episode that draw us in and, let’s be honest, confuse us until the case is finally solved at the end of the eight episodes.
'You can’t trust anyone in Harlan’s shows, that’s the beauty of it, that’s the intrigue, the excitement of it,' James Nesbitt, who stars alongside Ruth in the series, told The Radio Times.
'All you can really do playing it is just trying to be in the moment to try and be as truthful and authentic as you are – and then the script and the story will take that card wherever it’s supposed to go.'
Teasing what we can expect to feel when tuning in, he added, 'The audience will be unsettled and discombobulated at times. But no, it’s exciting.'
All eight episodes of Run Away will be released at once on Thursday, January 1, 2026, on Netflix.
