Blue Lights, BBC 1, Mondays and iPlayer
It’s a wonder the PSNI hasn’t featured in more television drama.
It’s got to be the most interesting police force in the UK or Ireland for a writer.
There’s the obvious background of the Troubles and the force’s emergence from the RUC. And tragically, its officers remain targets for republicans, as evidenced by recent events.
In no other part of these islands do police officers keep their occupations secret, routinely have to check under their cars and vary their travel routines.
Loyalist paramilitaries also remain armed and active, with an increased risk that tensions about Brexit could see them divert their activities away from drugs and crime and back to political violence.
Neither has any other area a contested border or a dedicated MI5 presence.
So, although we have vast quantities of cop dramas on television, Blue Lights is one of the few that locates the action in this peculiar place.
Written by Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson, it follows three probationary officers as they discover what it means to a peeler in Belfast.
PSNI recruitment won’t be putting links on their website to Blue Lights anytime soon.
The rookie officers face an intolerant leadership, abuse and violence on the streets, alongside laziness and buck passing in their ranks.
That’s without even getting to the cold, hard fact that a small section of the community would kill them on the spot given the chance.
The newbies are Grace (Sian Brooke), an ex-social worker who’s joined the cops in middle-age and wants to solve every problem with understanding, a hug and a cup of tea.
There’s Annie (Katherine Devlin) who seems to have the right mix of courage, confidence and aptitude to see her advance.
And then there’s Tommy (Nathan Braniff), a criminology graduate who joined up to see if the theory matches the reality.
He left his veteran partner open-mouthed when he declared: “I wanted to see if the same academic concepts applied to day to day policing. Like anthropological, sociological, even psychological. Can you see the same patterns on the ground as the theories predict?“
Tommy can’t shoot, lacks confidence and has poor social skills.
I’m three episodes in and the drama so far sees the PSNI team face off against a dissident republican narco-gang led by James McIntyre (John Lynch).
The McIntyre gang are desperately trying to regather a bad batch of drugs imported from Dublin that is leaving bodies all around the city and bringing unwanted police attention.
And among the bodies on the ground are a 15-year-old boy shot in the knee by appointment after selling the dodgy drugs outside the agreed area.
This leads the PSNI into dangerous interactions in the staunchly republican area of ‘Carrick View’ (an in-joke from the Northern Ireland born writers?).
At the beginning it’s a bit of a mixed-bag.
Some early scenes (the smarmy solicitor representing his posh clients in south Belfast who collapsed after taking some of the bad batch recreational drugs) had the feel of am-dram.
But lots more of the stuff has been engaging and novel.
Such as Annie’s introduction to the dangers of ‘stop and search’ against dissident republicans where the targets are often better informed about the law than the police.
And the story line about a west Belfast family who feel they have no choice but to bring their child to an arranged punishment shooting is powerful.
There are intriguing characters you don’t often see in drama, such as Jen (Hannah McClean), the daughter of a senior officer who’s lazy and cowardly.
Blue Lights may well be the best cop drama on television since last year’s Responder with Martin Freeman, my top pick of 2022.
