"We're talking about Manhunt season 3" says DCI Colin Sutton

Manhunt season 3
Martin Clunes stars as DCI Colin Sutton in Manhunt: The Night Stalker (Image credit: ITV)

Work is already underway on Manhunt season 3, say the team who produce ITV's true crime drama. 

The show returned to our screens for a second series with Martin Clunes playing DCI Colin Sutton in Manhunt: The Night Stalker this week, and he could be stepping back into the real-life detective's shoes again in the years to come. 

The Doc Martin star won rave reviews for his starring role in 2019's first series, which followed the quest to catch serial killer Levi Bellfield, and the second season follows the hunt for Delroy Grant, a serial rapist who escaped justice for 17 years.

Both series were created by Ed Whitmore, who adapted Colin's actual case notes for the hit drama and the pair have said they are sifting back through the detective's career, in which he led 30 successful murder investigations, for cases that could form the basis of a third series.

"I wasn't sure if we should come back and do another one after we did the first one," said Colin. "But Ed and I are thinking about it and we're talking about maybe doing a third. I have to say it's a possibility!"

The former detective is now retired and living in Suffolk after successfully leading 30 murder investigations for three different police forces over the course of his career, but acted as a consultant on both series. 

"I think there might be," he said, when asked if there were more cases from his history that could make for good TV. 

Manhunt

DCI Colin Sutton is reportedly working on a third series with ITV (Image credit: ITV)

The show's writer Ed Whitmore seemed far more confident on the possibility of more series and when asked if he was writing another script at a recent press junket, he replied. 

"100% yeah, absolutely," he explained. "As Colin says, we are talking about that right now and it's a possibility for sure."

Colin was involved in many high profile investigations during his career and recently teamed up with Sir Trevor McDonald to investigate whether Fred and Rose West could have murdered more people than the 12 women and girls they were convicted of killing.

"You should never close your mind to the human capacity to do evil things," says Colin. "There must be more victims, and there might be a lot more."

"If we look back at that area and that time, there was a spike of missing person reports in the Gloucester area, and a spike of attacks on young girls. I think there is information out there for us to find."

Sean Marland

Sean is a Senior Feature writer for TV Times, What's On TV and TV & Satellite Week, who also writes for whattowatch.com. He's been covering the world of TV for over 15 years and in that time he's been lucky enough to interview stars like Ian McKellen, Tom Hardy and Kate Winslet. His favourite shows are I'm Alan Partridge, The Wire, People Just Do Nothing and Succession and in his spare time he enjoys drinking tea, doing crosswords and watching football.