The third time’s a charm. Not many TV shows’ third seasons are their best, but that is the case with the pulsating, propulsive Blue Lights. One broadsheet critic has hailed the Belfast-set police procedural as “the best drama on the BBC”. It’s hard to argue: apart from the action unfolding in the Celebrity Traitors castle, which doesn’t count no matter how hard Alan Carr hams it up, Blue Lights is the most gripping saga on our screens. It’s fast becoming a British version of The Wire – and a huge part of that is thanks to its female characters.
Following the rookie response officers in the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), the 2023 debut series became a stealth hit. The second won a Bafta for best drama. Now, the standard and the stakes have miraculously been raised again. This criminally underrated show is going from strength to strength.
Showrunners Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson, who met while making documentaries about the city for Panorama, have conjured up a vivid fictional world, but one always firmly rooted in the realities of contemporary Belfast. Their scripts trace the links between terrorist dissidents, cocaine smugglers, sex traffickers and organised crime. As its canvas broadens, Blue Lights is building into a knotty conspiracy that spans every level of Ulster society.
The third season picks up threads from the first two, entering new spheres of criminality. The Blue Lights beat has already taken viewers into nationalist west Belfast and the loyalist east side. Now it’s paying house calls in the city’s affluent south suburbs, where accountants, lawyers and judges live in relative luxury but get their hands as dirty as anyone further down the food chain.
Familiar faces make surprise comebacks. Blackthorn police station is a fully realised setting, crackling with raw energy. By the season’s midway mark, the rivetingly tense third episode (never has a plumber’s van looked so sinister), it starts to sing and soar.
As well as The Wire, Lawn and Patterson’s professed influences include Hill Street Blues and Friday Night Lights, along with a more unlikely touchstone in Peter Kay’s Car Share. Not just for the snacks and stereo squabbles, but for the intense relationships that form on fast-forward while sitting side-by-side in a vehicle all day. For a supermarket manager’s red Fiat 500L, just swap in a police patrol car.
As with ex-Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon, Lawn and Patterson’s journalistic backgrounds lend their creation a street-level perspective. They conduct in-depth interviews with serving cops before writing each series and keep retired officers on hand as consultants. The result is hard-edged and unflinching. As crime novelist Flic Everett said on social media this week: “Blue Lights is the best cop show because when the others cut away, they stay with it.”
What The Wire did for Baltimore, Blue Lights is doing for Belfast. No wonder the city, still deeply divided about many other issues, is united in its pride for the show. Lawn acknowledged as much at the Baftas in May, ending his acceptance speech with: “Belfast, this one’s for you.”
Budgets might be modest by prestige TV standards, but there’s no shortage of shootouts, riots, ambushes and car chases. Still to come is a thrillingly edited convoy sequence that wouldn’t feel out of place in peak-era Line of Duty. Meanwhile, an officer sustains a potentially fatal wound. You’ll find yourself holding your breath as a trauma-trained paramedic issues instructions on the police radio while his life hangs in the balance.
Such moments punctuate an immersive portrayal of day-to-day frontline policing. Rapid response units answer call-outs to mental health crises, noise complaints, anti-abortion demos and drug overdoses, all while facing widespread hostility and trying to protect the fragile peace. Our probationary officers might have become fully fledged “peelers”, but they’re still learning on the job. It’s the best small-screen portrayal of uniformed police – as opposed to maverick detectives – since Happy Valley.
Some fans still haven’t forgiven the writers for killing off cult hero Constable Gerry Cliff (Richard Dormer), who was shockingly gunned down in the street towards the end of the debut series. The current run traces the continuing fallout from Gerry’s death, but also leaves viewers’ hearts in their mouths about the fates of several other central characters.
Belfast’s complex history and lingering sectarian tensions permeate the plot. Catholic officer Annie (Katherine Devlin) receives death threats over her choice of career, taking ominous delivery of a parcel containing a black wreath and a bullet. With her life at risk, it’s suddenly unsafe to visit her terminally ill mother. Deathbed scenes between the pair are deeply poignant.
Everywhere you look, women deliver the show’s emotional heft. Past collides with present when social worker turned cop Grace (Siân Brooke) encounters a former client, troubled teenager Lindsay (Aoife Hughes). Can she persuade the overstretched child protection unit to intervene in the vulnerable girl’s exploitation as a drug runner and sex worker? Will her compassionate meddling land everyone in deep trouble? Should the do-gooder stop trying to fix the world? A gut-wrenching revelation about Grace’s own past threatens to end her romance with newly promoted boyfriend Stevie (Martin McCann).
Derry girl Aisling (Dearbháile McKinney), originally introduced as a love interest for Tommy (Nathan Braniff), begins behaving erratically after attending a gruesome car crash. Unravelling due to PTSD, she tips into vigilantism by taking a domestic violence case into her own hands. Station commander inspector Helen McNally (Joanne Crawford) is sucked into the murky realm of “sneaky beakies” by veteran intelligence officer Paul “Colly” Collins (Michael Smiley). Gerry’s widow Sandra (Andi Osho) grapples with grief and one of his killers being paroled early. Even icy police ombudsman Geraldine Gilroy (Aoibhéann McCann) gets her air-punch moment of glory.
On the other side of the law, a deadly showdown is brewing between formidable members’ club impresario Dana Morgan (the mighty Cathy Tyson) and teak-tough gangster’s moll Tina McIntyre (Abigail McGibbon), who reveals herself as a total badass before the season is out. Female characters steal the show, lending it depth and emotional potency – an impressive feat from an all-male writing team.
In a city scarred by its past, plots blend the personal with the political. By the time our heroes bow out with a rousing Westlife singalong (no, really), you’ll be in no doubt that series three was the best and most ambitious yet. Rest assured, a fourth run is already in the early stages of production. Blue Lights has quietly become one of the best shows on TV. It might be dark out there but those flashing bulbs are shining bright.
