\u201cSeries one was about what it takes to do the job and I think series two is about what the job takes from you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The co-creator of Belfast-based police drama Blue Lights has described its second series as a \u201cworthy successor\u201d.<\/p>\n
The drama follows a batch of newly-qualified officers navigating policing in a post-conflict Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n
Blue Lights \u2013 which was co-created and written by Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson \u2013 launched to more than seven million viewers last year.<\/p>\n
This article contains spoilers from Blue Lights series one<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a sense that you feel when you come back for a second season that there\u2019s something that people have liked, or even loved,\u201d Lawn told BBC News.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always up to the audiences, you can never take anything for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawn said the latest offering of Blue Lights continues to explore the \u201crelentless, grinding daily pressure\u201d of policing in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s something about it being here with the particular pressures and dangers they face that make people across the water [Great Britain] intrigued by it,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
The February 2023\u00a0shooting of Det Ch Insp John Caldwell\u00a0in Omagh, County Tyrone, was a reminder of the threat still faced by police officers in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n
During almost 30 years of violence known as the Troubles, 302 police officers were killed.<\/p>\n
Series two takes place one year after the death of PC Gerry Cliff who was shot while on duty at the end of series one.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe death of Gerry was calculated for us because we knew it was going to be the genesis of series two,\u201d Mr Lawn explained.<\/p>\n
Adam Patterson added: \u201cThe whole creative team made a conscious decision to move the story a year on. Part of the reason for that is that if we had picked it up right away then every story would have been consumed by Gerry and we needed the actors to go on different journeys.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a lot of ways he still lives on in many of our characters but by moving the story on a year it allows us to look at different parts of the police and parts of the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
The passage of time has also allowed for some character development, according to Nathan Braniff who portrays PC Tommy Foster.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s getting into it a bit more, he\u2019s progressing,\u201d Braniff said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing about Blue Lights and what makes it different is you\u2019re going very in-depth to these characters who are rookies, and that\u2019s something that hasn\u2019t been done before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Si\u00e2n Brooke also feels her character, PC Grace Ellis, has become \u201cmuch more experienced in the job\u201d but said her home life has been turned \u201cupside-down\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe world that Declan and Adam have created has expanded even more and you begin to understand the complexities of the crimes the characters are encountering in their day-to-day jobs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe stakes are high. It will be quite explosive, moving and an authentic reflection of some parts of present-day Belfast, but audiences can still expect those comedy beats alongside the serious side of the story.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we know who these characters are, we dig deeper into their lives and understand why they react in certain situations,\u201d says Si\u00e2n Brook<\/span><\/p>\n While viewers may look forward to welcoming familiar cast members back to their screens, there are also some fresh faces to connect with.<\/p>\n Seamus O\u2019Hara, who starred in the\u00a0Academy Award-winning short film An Irish Goodbye, joins the cast for series two.<\/p>\n He plays Lee Thompson, a Protestant from east Belfast who becomes entangled in a loyalist feud which causes \u201cabsolute chaos on the streets for our officers\u201d, according to Lawn.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter serving in Afghanistan he sees a different kind of war on the streets of Belfast,\u201d O\u2019Hara explained.<\/p>\n \u201cHe very quickly identifies a new enemy \u2013 drugs \u2013 a threat to the well-being of his community and he goes after that with everything he\u2019s got.\u201d<\/p>\n The actor said he researched \u201ca world of tradition\u201d to ready himself for the role to ensure he had no \u201cpreconceptions or assumptions about that community\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cA fellow actor took me on tours of Belfast so that I could look at it with fresh eyes,\u201d Seamus continued.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I wanted to discover most of all was what Lee was most proud of as a unionist man and as soon as I started to explore that it pushed me in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n Blue Lights was in the top 10 new drama series of 2023 across all broadcasters and streamers, and the biggest drama series in Northern Ireland in 2023.<\/p>\n In February,\u00a0the BBC ordered two more six-part series of Blue Lights.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really unprecedented thing for a series to be commissioned for series three and four before series two goes out,\u201d Lawn said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt helps enormously to develop a series four\u2026 [there\u2019ll be] certain things we\u2019ll leave hanging at the end of series three.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Blue Lights series two promises \u2018absolute chaos\u2019<\/a> first appeared on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cSeries one was about what it takes to do the job and I think series two is about what the job takes from you.\u201d The co-creator of Belfast-based police drama Blue Lights has described its second series as a \u201cworthy successor\u201d. The drama follows a batch of newly-qualified officers navigating policing in a post-conflict Northern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}