BBC confirms there will be two more series of Line of Duty

Line of Duty
(Image credit: World Productions/ BBC / Des Wil)

Line of Duty fans will be delighted to learn the BBC has commissioned two more series of the hugely popular drama about a web of police corruption

BBC director-general Tony Hall has announced there will be a fifth AND sixth series of hit police corruption thriller series Line of Duty.

Lord Hall said at a press launch: "I am very excited to say there's not one but two more series of Line of Duty. So hooray for AC-12!"

Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio had earlier been unsure whether it would go beyond a fifth series, expected to screen in the first half of 2019.

He told Radio Times: “If, by the time we get to the development of series five, there are no further series commissioned, then we have to approach series five as if it’s the last. If we know we have got a sixth series then we are able to look ahead.

“I have got an idea of how things will conclude or, more accurately, the kind of story we need to get into for that to be dramatised. Whereas if I know series five is not the last series then I have other ideas that are more standalone in terms of what the story is.”

He added: “I certainly would make six. Whether I would go beyond six would depend on how series five went."

Line of Duty series four concluded to universal praise from fans and critics as it revealed there was more than one Balaclava Man responsible for the abduction and murders of young women, while DCI Roz Huntley was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the killing of forensic expert Tim Ifield.

 

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.