‘Best Cop Show’: Blue Lights gets better with every episode | television

TThird time’s the charm. Not many TV shows’ third seasons are the best, but that’s the case with the pulsating and propulsive Blue Lights. One critic praised the Belfast police procedural as “the best drama on the BBC”. It’s hard to argue: apart from the events that unfold in the Celebrity Traitors’ castle, which don’t count no matter how hard Alan Carr wrote them, Blue Lights is the most interesting saga on our screens. It has quickly become a British version of The Wire, in large part because of its female characters.

Following the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Junior Response Officers, the first series of 2023 has been a huge success. The second won the BAFTA Award for Best Drama. Now, the standards and 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, conjure a lively imaginative world, but always firmly rooted in the realities of contemporary Belfast. Their texts trace the links between terrorist dissidents, cocaine smugglers, sex traffickers, and organized crime. As its canvas expands, Blue Lights develops into a complex conspiracy involving all levels of Ulster society.

The third season picks up threads from the first two seasons, delving into new criminal areas. The rhythms of Blue Lights have already transported viewers to Belfast’s nationalist west and loyalist east side. She now pays for house calls in the city’s affluent southern suburbs, where accountants, lawyers and judges live in relative luxury but have their hands as dirty as everyone else at the bottom of the food chain.

Familiar faces suddenly return. Blackthorn Police Station is a fully realized place filled with raw energy. By the middle of the season, the third episode begins to become remarkably tense (the plumber’s truck has never looked so sinister), and it begins to sing and soar.

As well as The Wire, Lawn and Patterson’s stated influences include Hill Street Blues and Friday Night Lights, along with an unlikely touchstone in Peter Kay’s Car Share. Not just for the snacks and stereo bickering, but for the intense relationships that form when you fast-forward while sitting side by side in the car all day. To get a red Fiat 500L for a supermarket manager, just trade it in for a police patrol car.

As with former Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon, Lawn and Patterson’s journalistic backgrounds lend their creations a street-level perspective. They conduct in-depth interviews with serving cops before writing each series and retain retired officers as consultants. The result is hard and consistent edges. As crime novelist Fleck Everett said on social media this week: “Blue Lights is the best cop show because when people turn away from it, they stay with it.”

What The Wire did in Baltimore, Blue Lights does in Belfast. No wonder the city, still deeply divided on many other issues, is united in its pride in the parade. Lawn admitted as much at the BAFTA Awards in May, ending his acceptance speech by saying: “Belfast, this is for you.”

Budgets may be modest by prestige TV standards, but there’s no shortage of shootouts, riots, ambushes and car chases. There’s still a dramatically edited convoy sequence that wouldn’t look out of place in a primetime-era Line of Duty. Meanwhile, an officer sustained a potentially fatal wound. You’ll find yourself holding your breath as a trained trauma paramedic issues instructions on the police radio while his life hangs in the balance.

Such moments are punctuated by an immersive depiction of daily police work on the front lines. Rapid response units respond to mental health crisis calls, noise complaints, anti-abortion demonstrations, and drug overdoses, all while facing widespread hostility and trying to protect a fragile peace. Our probationary officers may have become completely “peeled,” but they are still learning on the job. It’s the best small-screen depiction of uniformed cops — rather than maverick detectives — since Happy Valley.

Some fans still haven’t forgiven the writers for killing off cult hero Constable Jerry Cliffe (Richard Dormer), who was shockingly shot dead in the street near the end of the first series. The current show traces the ongoing fallout from Jerry’s death, but also leaves viewers with their hearts in their mouths over the fates of several other central characters.

Belfast’s complex history and persistent sectarian tensions permeate this plot. Receiving death threats over her choice of career, Catholic officer Annie (Catherine Devlin) receives an ominous package containing a black wreath and a bullet. With her life in danger, it suddenly becomes unsafe to visit her terminally ill mother. The deathbed scenes between the couple are very moving.

Everywhere you look, women provide the emotional weight of the series. The past collides with the present when social worker turned policewoman Grace (Sian Brooke) meets a former client, troubled teenager Lindsay (Aoife Hughes). Can she convince an overwhelmed child protection unit to intervene in the exploitation of a vulnerable girl as a drug trafficker and sex worker? Will her merciful intervention put everyone in deep trouble? Should philanthropists stop trying to fix the world? Painful revelations about Grace’s past threaten to end her romance with newly promoted boyfriend Stevie (Martin McCann).

Derry girl Aisling (Dearbailey McKinney), originally introduced as Tommy’s (Nathan Braniff) love interest, begins acting erratically after a terrible car accident. Disintegrated by PTSD, she resorts to sobering up by taking a domestic violence case into her own hands. Station Commander Inspector Helen McNally (Joan Crawford) is sucked into the mysterious world of “Sneaky Beaks” by veteran intelligence officer Paul “Coolie” Collins (Michael Smiley). Jerry’s widow Sandra (Andy Osho) suffers grief and one of his killers is released early. Even icy police ombudsman Geraldine Gilroy (Obihan McCann) gets her moment of glory.

On the other side of the law, there’s a deadly showdown brewing between formidable members’ club impresario Dana Morgan (the tough Cathy Tyson) and tough, teak gangster Tina McIntyre (Abigail McGibbon), who reveals herself to be a total badass before the season is over. The female characters steal the show, giving it depth and emotional strength – an impressive feat from an all-male writing team.

In a city scarred by its past, intrigue blends the personal and the political. By the time our heroes come out with a rousing Westlife sing-along (no, really), you’ll be in no doubt that series three was their best and most ambitious yet. Rest assured, Round 4 is already in the early stages of production. Blue Lights has quietly become one of the best shows on television. It may be dark out there but those flashing lights shine bright.