Is it a stretch to call Blue Lights, which is back for season two, the United Kingdom’s answer to The Wire? Well, yes. In all honesty that would be a bit much – it’s more like a cross between The Wire and Holby City. But the police drama was one of the breakout hits of 2023 because, beneath the soapy surface of its interactions between rookie cops, it has a clear-eyed, humane view of policing as an impossible job. Whatever we might think of the force generally, a combination of societal breakdown on the streets and corruption/mismanagement in the corridors of power makes any attempt to carry a badge and maintain order a futile gesture, like standing on a beach trying to mop away the tide. As it was in Baltimore, so it is in Belfast.
Blue Lights comes at this recipe for bracingly pessimistic drama from a particular angle, sitting itself as it does in modern Northern Ireland. We are post-Troubles, which is to say that the schisms and resentments that caused the Troubles are still there, being carefully – or perhaps not so carefully – managed to prevent embers again becoming flames. Season one revolved around the police’s battle with a local Republican crime family, the McIntyres, who it turned out were being propped up by the British security services, meaning any effort to do the simple work of arresting these criminals for committing crimes was met with the show’s insidious catchphrase, “double-oh bee”. Messing with MI5’s mysterious and probably misguided work was, for the humble bobby on the beat, out of bounds.
