Line Of Duty star Adrian Dunbar has defended the finale of the hit cop show – but admitted it may not have been as “dramatically satisfying” as viewers would’ve liked.
And the Northern Irishman, who plays Superintendent Ted Hastings in the popular BBC series, said if the show returns again, he wasn’t sure it would run for six episodes.
The sixth series of the police drama, which aired from March to May in 2021, was a ratings success, with its dramatic finale – which was watched by over 15.4M people - revealing the identity of the mysterious corrupt officer H as Detective Superintendent Ian Buckells, played by Nigel Boyle.
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Many fans were unhappy about the ending, much to the annoyance of creator Jed Mercurio.
But Dunbar said of the finale: “It may not have been dramatically satisfying and I can understand why people went, ‘Oh my God!’ But it was a proper way to conclude, to show that actually some of the biggest stuff that happens is very simply an ordinary cop not passing on information because he’s been asked not to and that’s the one thing that can make a heist work.”
He added that the team could not have predicted how big Line of Duty would become, making it all the more challenging to suddenly unveil the bent-copper-in-chief. “It’s very difficult to introduce a new character, a Mr Big at the end of the sixth season,” he said.
“You realise that it has to be somebody we’ve already seen — it can’t be somebody from absolutely nowhere. So it was a tricky place to be in.”
Dunbar told The Times the final decision on Line of Duty’s return is "entirely down" to creator Mercurio.
He is set to reunite with Mercurio and co-stars Martin Compston and Vicky McClure on Monday August 29 for a curry, and suggested they "might hear something" about more episodes then.
He said: “Dunbar said: "There's a big appetite for more Line of Duty. It could be three or four episodes; I don’t think there’s going to be six, for some reason.
"It might be two 90 minutes. But it’s all entirely down to Jed what the storyline is going to be. It’s a big ask for him."
He added: "It’s going to be really good. Maybe someone’s going to die. Someone’s going to be under threat.
"He doesn’t mind killing characters off. Maybe he’ll kill us all off. A terrible car crash when we’re rushing to the scene of a crime? We’ll have to leave it to him."
Compston and McClure have also spoken about their desire for the show to return. “When Jed sees a story, we’d all be game. I think we’d all be absolutely heartbroken if we thought that was the last time we all worked together, so there’s an appetite there,” Compston told the Radio Times in March.
However, Mercurio has said another series is not fully within his control.
He said previously: “We’re in a situation where it’s not entirely clear that there will be a seventh series,” he said last year. “We would hope there could be.
"But we’re having to do our planning coming out of Covid, and a whole bunch of other things, around the idea that these things aren’t guaranteed at all now.
"A lot of it depends on the key creatives —that’s me and the main actors — finding new stories to tell within that universe.”
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