Johnston's score for Charles Sturridge's mini-series Shackleton won a 2002 Primetime Emmy.[5] In 2009, he scored the British science-fiction procedural TV series Paradox. He composed the theme music for the BBC detective series Zen, which won him a 2011 RTS Awards;[6] the World War II drama The Sinking of the Laconia; Stephen Poliakoff's acclaimed 2013 TV series Dancing on the Edge; and the drama The 7.39. Johnston won another RTS award in 2014 for scoring The Tunnel.[7]