If you don\u2019t yet think that Blue Lights (BBC1) is on its way to becoming a new Line of Duty (but less far-fetched), by the end of this series you may have changed your mind.<\/p>\n
You are about to be served up twists, rug-pullers, dodgy lawyers, shady police deals, heartbreak, domestic violence, murder, sexual abuse, childhood secrets, wit and dialogue that elevate it above the usual cop show. I am a fan, although I still don\u2019t think the last series should have beaten Wolf Hall: the Mirror and the Light at the Baftas.<\/p>\n
Episode one started pretty mundanely: cosy couple Stevie (Martin McCann) and Grace (Si\u00e2n Brooke) in their patrol car discussing Stevie\u2019s boring buns (again). He is such a Bake Off-type obsessive, he had ordered cocoa powder from a chocolatier in Belgium. How come he and Grace are always stuffing their faces from his Tupperware box yet both are as thin as a whippet? <\/p>\n
Anyway, the cake break didn\u2019t stop them from arresting a young street drug dealer, Sandy, and thus compromising an intelligence surveillance operation. They didn\u2019t know he was being secretly tailed to lead detectives to an encrypted app that gangsters are using to sell high-purity cocaine. Blue Lights\u2019 strength has always been to start small, showing how tiny incidents are a portal to a much bigger picture.<\/p>\n
This series will take us away from the usual street grit and into the world of privileged, middle-class cocaine use, specifically in a new swanky private members\u2019 club in Belfast run by flinty Dana (Cathy Tyson), who is happy for moneyed professionals to snort away providing they are discreet and the ambience of her club remains \u201celite luxury safe space\u201d. Fast forward to the wealthy local accountant George filling his hooter and then collapsing on the shag pile as the pianist tinkles away at a terrible version of The Whole of the Moon.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Move over, Line of Duty \u2014 why Blue Lights is our best crime drama<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Dana is furious with Donal Fogerty (Charlie Maher), the gang master dealer (who reminds me slightly of the comedian John Bishop), and tells him: \u201cTonight your world walked into mine and shat itself on the carpet.\u201d Not literally, I hope. It looked pricey. While George was lying unconscious in hospital PC Shane Bradley used the patient\u2019s finger to open his phone, something which we can safely file under \u201cnaughtypoos\u201d. But he does class George as a \u201cRich south Belfast entitled wanker\u201d. Surely this needs an acronym: RSBEW?<\/p>\n The most harrowing parts of episode one, in a series that can switch from whimsy to savagery on a sixpence, both involved violent death. When Annie and Aisling were called to a car crash in which a young man, horribly injured, was dying, it was a perfect example of the random horror to which emergency responders are subjected daily and expected to cope with. <\/p>\n The effect on Aisling (Dearbh\u00e1ile McKinney), who said prayers with him and put blood-stained rosary beads in his hands as his life ebbed away, then had to tell his parents, was harrowing.<\/p>\n \u2022 Read more TV reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n This series will show how beat police somehow mop up all the loose awfulness of life \u2014 mental health problems, drug abuse, a neglected baby shoved alone in a bedroom during a deafening, drug-addled house rave \u2014 as if it was nothing. And also witness cold-blooded gang murder as seen in the final moments when that young man\u2019s body hit the tarmac and nearly Grace and Stevie\u2019s car bonnet.<\/p>\n Blue Lights addresses the compromises the police have to make, with intelligence officer Paul Collins (Michael Smiley) later making a very controversial one. What I have always liked about Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson\u2019s writing is that the dialogue is sharp, never clich\u00e9d. The lives of the officers feel real. Yes, it starts slowly, but this long-form storytelling is always worth the investment. Love TV? Discover the best shows on Netflix<\/a>, the best Prime Video TV shows<\/a>, the best Disney+ shows<\/a>, the best Apple TV+ shows<\/a>, the best shows on BBC iPlayer<\/a>, the best shows on Sky and Now<\/a>, the best shows on ITVX<\/a>, the best shows on Channel 4<\/a> streaming, the best shows on Paramount+<\/a> and our favourite hidden gem TV shows<\/a>. Don\u2019t forget to check our critics\u2019 choices to what to watch this week<\/a>, and browse our comprehensive TV guide<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you don\u2019t yet think that Blue Lights (BBC1) is on its way to becoming a new Line…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3937],"tags":[77,382,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-474857","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115319117076994785","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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