When Blue Lights first appeared, it was hard to get too excited about yet another cop show. We are only at the end of April and already the year has been stuffed with them, from the great (Happy Valley) to the functionally decent (Unforgotten) to the fine (Better), you can’t move for a moody detective or a seemingly uncrackable case. One theory about their enduring appeal is that police procedurals are the most psychologically satisfying form of storytelling, because they fulfil what the human brain finds pleasurable about drama – a puzzle to solve, red herrings and false starts, and the idea that somebody knows what’s going on, even if we don’t yet.
Written and co-created by Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson (who wrote The Salisbury Poisonings), Blue Lights sets itself apart from the pack. The series – whose final episode airs on BBC One tonight – has a journalistic eye for detail and nuance. It sidesteps the case-of-the-week template, preferring to take an overview of the incredibly complex world of policing in Belfast. This is rich material. First broadcast just before the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, it paints a detailed picture of the city as it is today, with the Troubles never far from that picture, whether in the highly sensitive issue of policing by consent (and consent is not a given), or in the histories of the men (and women) involved in organised crime.
