{"id":616815,"date":"2026-08-02T15:37:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T15:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/616815\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T15:37:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T15:37:18","slug":"line-of-duty-is-back-10-new-british-detective-dramas-to-watch-soon-on-itv-netflix-the-bbc-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/616815\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cLine of Duty Is Back\u201d: 10 New British Detective Dramas to Watch Soon On ITV, Netflix, the BBC and More"},"content":{"rendered":"

In television, when all else fails, when the writing is on the whiteboard, when you\u2019re completely, drastically out of creative ideas, what is the one format that always delivers ratings?<\/p>\n

\u201cHold on, Whisky, Tango, Coca-Cola, I am just checking the log on that. The answer is detectives, over.\u201d <\/p>\n

Grizzled coppers, comedy coppers, depressed coppers, last-job coppers, first-job coppers, bent coppers, grieving coppers, coppers who would rather be in the pub, naive coppers. Any copper will do, just give them a leather jacket and a grey sky, a juicy murder and some complicated family circumstances, and Bobby\u2019s your avuncular copper. <\/p>\n

No nation does detectives better than the British. And there are some good ones are coming up. Here is the best of them. <\/p>\n

\"Line<\/p>\n

BBC<\/p>\n

Line of Duty (Season 7)<\/p>\n

If a TV show could have national-treasure status<\/a>, LoD makes the cut. Jed Mercurio’s wildly popular anti-corruption police procedural is finally back after a long hiatus. The core trio of AC-12 \u2013 Steve Arnott, Kate Fleming, and Ted Hastings are back in business weeding out bent coppers at the top of the force. This time, it\u2019s to investigate a high-ranking senior officer.<\/p>\n

Airs on BBC1 and iPlayer, expected late 2026. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"filming<\/p>\n

Sky.<\/p>\n

Meantime<\/p>\n

Based on the novel by Scots comedian Frankie Boyle, this six-parter hosts an all-star cast of James McAvoy, Christopher Ecclestone, Mark Bonnar and Benedict Wong. It\u2019s a \u201ccomic\u201d crime drama about an addict (McAvoy) trying to clear his name after becoming the main suspect in the murder of his best friend in a Glasgow park. Drugs and paranoia are his worst enemies in that endeavour, so he turns to a detective-turned-crime novelist and a chaotic friend for help.<\/p>\n

Airs on NOW and Sky sometime in 2027.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"dept.<\/p>\n

Netflix<\/p>\n

Dept. Q (Season 2)<\/p>\n

This follows the gruff-and-grumpy copper format to the letter. Only, Morck makes Morse look like Jonathan Creek. The only thing he hates more than everyone around him is himself. Which is a double blow for the people around him. Especially Assad, the mysterious Syrian refugee who may or may not have once been a highly trained operative in his homeland\u2019s secret police. This time, Morck and his crew are flung into a murderous conspiracy at \u201cin the highest echelons of Scottish society\u2026 [where] rich and powerful people believe they\u2019re above the law\u201d. <\/p>\n

Airs on Netflix in 2027.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"bookish\"<\/p>\n

Nicolas Velter<\/p>\n

Bookish (Season 2)<\/p>\n

Mark Gatiss is back as Gabriel Book, a sort of post-war conflation of Sherlock Holmes, Ludwig and Oscar Wilde. The premise is simple: Book runs a bookshop, constantly dispenses literary puns, and solves crimes thanks to his mysterious “letter from Churchill”. The clues, you’ll find, are usually in his books. There’s also a rather moving “the problem with being gay in post-war Britain” subplot that adds a sense of sorrow to the story, as well as something to say. But mostly, this is cosy crime at it’s finest. This series picks up where the last left off<\/a>, seeing Book investigates “the world of spiritualism as he helps to solve a baffling case involving [a] medium… and a s\u00e9ance full of secrets”.<\/p>\n

Airs on U&Alibi, autumn 2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"four<\/p>\n

BBC.<\/p>\n

Blue Lights (Series 4)<\/p>\n

Belfast’s finest rookies-turned-veterans are back for round four, still dodging paramilitary politics as much as actual crime. This is a detective drama with real bite, real stakes and genuine tension, and a proper setting that does lots of emotional heavy lifting. The critics gushed over this when it first came out and haven’t held back on seasons two and three. One of the best British shows on TV right now.<\/p>\n

Airs on BBC One and iPlayer, autumn 2026.<\/strong>
<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"two<\/p>\n

ITV.<\/p>\n

The Blame <\/p>\n

This twisty six-part thriller stars Michelle Keegan as DI Emma Crane and Douglas Booth as DI Tom Radley as they probe the murder of a teenage figure skater in a quiet town. Per the publicity, the investigation quickly spirals into a web of institutional cover-ups and moral compromise, forcing our competent heroes to investigate the corruption hiding inside their own team. <\/p>\n

Airs on ITV, release date TBC<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tartan noir, they call it. And like a fine tartan weave, Shetland keeps repeating the same pattern over and over: grief, grudges, and bodies in the heather. And yet, it somehow never wears thin. <\/p>\n

Eleven seasons in, and the answers simply still cannot keep up with the murders. Good job, then, that DI Ruth Calder (Ashley Jensen) and DI Alison “Tosh” McIntosh (Alison O’Donnell) are on hand to sort it all out. S11 starts with an old car being pulled from a lake and, surprise surprise, a decomposed body is stuffed inside the boot. But who’s body? And how does it connect to a missing local GP? It’s Tosh and Calder’s job to find out. <\/p>\n

Airs on BBC One and iPlayer, expected late 2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Britain’s favourite puzzle-solving awkwa-geek is back. David Mitchell’s John “Ludwig” Taylor isn’t keen on people, less so murder, but he’s been stuck impersonating his missing twin brother \u2013 an actual Cambridge DCI \u2013 as his crossword-brain became the only thing standing between Cambridgeshire Constabulary and total chaos. Luckily, in series two, he finally gets to be himself, not his missing brother, as a signed-up crime scene consultant for the force. Meanwhile, John and his sister-in-law Lucy (Anna Maxwell Martin) continue their secret, off-the-books search to find James, despite being forbidden by police to use any of their resources.<\/p>\n

Airs on BBC iPlayer in August 2026 (exact date TBC) <\/strong><\/p>\n

It was Channel 4’s most watched show of 2026, and soon the nation’s favourite archivist-turned-accidental-detective is back for a third go, and this time she’s graduating from solving other people’s murders to investigating her own father’s death. Ella Maisy Purvis will return as Patience Evans, the York police records clerk whose neurodivergent eye for detail keeps outsmarting everyone with an actual detective badge, alongside Jessica Hynes as DI Frankie Monroe, now a proper mate rather than a prickly new boss. Season two came out in January, so we can expect a while before S3 comes out. Probably same time next year.<\/p>\n

Airs on Channel 4, expected 2027.<\/strong>
<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nocturne<\/p>\n

This is an American show, but I’m including it simply because it looks great and stars British national-treasure-in-waiting Stephen Graham as, wait for it, a \u201cdiabolically cunning serial killer\u201d. Liev Schreiber is the main detective, Jonah Lynn, a weary ex-soldier turned murder (sorry, homicide) detective who moves from Philadelphia to a small Pennsylvania town for a quiet life, only to be dragged headlong into a gritty new investigation. But Graham’s Jurek Walter threatens to unravel everything Jonah’s tried to leave behind. It\u2019s based a Joona Linna novel by Lars Kepler, the pseudonym of Swedish husband-and-wife writers Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndori.<\/p>\n

First episode airs on Apple TV on 30 October 2026 <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In television, when all else fails, when the writing is on the whiteboard, when you\u2019re completely, drastically out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[265],"tags":[341,260430,343,18,117,19,17,201411,342,260429,240005,151678,128],"class_list":["post-616815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-9d282e06-7284-44f0-b846-beecf0b1b5e1","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-gb","tag-shorttitle-10-new-british-detective-dramas-to-watch-soon","tag-sponsored-false","tag-subsection-tv","tag-tv"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117026662762423372","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}