Blue Lights Season Three release date: Latest BBC series sees PSNI delve into 'where the real criminals live - in south Belfast'
Fans of police drama Blue Lights may get a clearer insight into organised crime than they realise, with the new series focusing on middle class Northern Ireland professionals who facilitate the gangs - using insights from years of front line journalism.
Former BBC NI Journalists turned scriptwriters Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson say they have been able to tell a more honest version of life in Northern Ireland than they did in journalism - having lifted conversations from interviews in their past and dropping them straight into their scripts.
Series three, launching on 29 September, opens with response officers Grace, Annie and Tommy two years into their new jobs - now delving into the world of accountants and lawyers who facilitate organised crime gangs.
In this series the old political and criminal order has gone and a new global gang rules Belfast - reflecting real world realities of foreign gangs pushing NI’s home grown terrorists for supremacy.
"Be ready for some laughs and a lot of tears," Patterson told BBC Good Morning Ulster.
"It's two years in, we know the officers more than ever and so we're really there with them on their journeys."
Season three will be looking more at "where the real criminals live - in south Belfast", Patterson joked – noting he had his cowriter both live there.
"It's fair to say that crime has no limits and we felt it was imperative to kind of look across the city at where it happens all over."
Lawn and Patterson, who were both BBC NI journalists before writing Blue Lights, have used their newsroom experience as "collective therapy" while writing.
Lawn said: "It's a funny way to process 16 years of journalism. You can go to places emotionally that you don't really do journalism. And I think, honestly, you can say things that are more difficult to say in journalism. Fiction allows you to do that. So, yeah, we mine our past.
"There are conversations in Blue Lights that are almost verbatim drawn from interviews I've done."
The show's cast have also enjoyed the success.
Nathan Braniff plays novice cop Tommy Foster, who is admittedly "naive and easily-led", he said.
"It's unusual that you see maybe a police officer in a drama that's not fully there and is not fully capable of everything."
Blue Lights' success has made a "big difference" to his life, with the show's success getting him into audition rooms he never thought possible.
"Sometimes you can almost feel like you've maybe got a little bit of imposter syndrome because you're auditioning against people who are [well-known]," he added.
The shock Bafta win for the show in May made for an emotional return home to Northern Ireland, Patterson said.
"But for a small regional show with a big heart, we never believed we'd be recognised on a big stage like Bafta."
Fans will also be glad to hear that filming for season four is provisionally planned for February.
Blue Lights series two averaged 5.6M viewers across the series, while episode one’s 7M made it the BBC’s fourth biggest drama launch last year. In Northern Ireland, it was the biggest drama across the whole market (broadcasters and streamers), across 2023 and 2024.
Series one and two of Blue Lights have sold to over 160 territories.
Last year a report by BBC economists using data from independent production companies found that the show generated an estimated £20m to the Northern Ireland economy through employment and spending in the supply chain across its first two series.
The series employed an average of 59 cast of which 83% were either born in or a resident of Northern Ireland. Of the crew of 246, more than 87% were from Northern Ireland.
• The new season of Blue Lights starts on BBC One at 9pm on Monday 29 September. See the trailer for the new season here.