Sing hallelujah and make ill-advised references to Superintendent Ted Hastings' catchphrases – Line of Duty is coming back! The BBC confirmed this week that the hit police-corruption show would return with all the main leads in place.
We'd argue that the timing couldn't have been better, and for more than one reason.
First, there's the timeliness of the show's theme of police corruption. Only this month, a Met Police officer was found guilty of sexual harassment of a colleague, while an internal review by the service admitted that systemic failures "made it inevitable that racial harm keeps reoccurring".
In October, the BBC revealed instances where officers were secretly filmed being dismissive of rape claims and calling for immigrants to be shot.
That's without even looking back a few years to the horrific case of officer Wayne Couzens and the failures that led to his murder of Sarah Everard.
While Line of Duty has scrupulously avoided pinning its stories to a specific location (it's filmed in Belfast), the problems within the Met are inevitably its chief inspiration, given its status as the largest police service in the UK, by some distance.
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The BBC has revealed that the new series will focus on a detective inspector accused of abusing his position of trust to act as a sexual predator, which is hard to pretend has nothing to do with the headlines referred to above.
Addressing institutional failures in real life is a national priority, but it's often in fiction that a nation finds the collective moral energy to act. Just look at the effect of Mr Bates vs the Post Office. A show with a platform as big as Line of Duty – albeit a fictional one – has an opportunity to expose real issues and demand better.
Then there's another reason the timing is right: basically, we've all had a chance to forget about H. The internal-corruption storyline that spread from season two onwards involved a line of baddies that rose upwards from Matthew 'Dot" Cottan and eventually took in four senior police figures codenamed "H".
By the end of season six, only diehard fans would deny that the show was scrabbling around trying to make that arc work after all the plausible Hs had been exposed or ruled out. (The boss-level baddie was eventually revealed to be low-profile plod Ian Buckells, a plot point that divided fans.)
If Line of Duty had returned the following year, there would have been pressure to keep that national talking point going, but now, four years later, we've collectively forgotten about it. They can start afresh.
"Corruption in this country is supposed to have come to an end while Line of Duty was off air so I’ve been forced to use my imagination," showrunner Jed Mercurio joked this week, as he revealed that the new series will see AC-12 already disbanded and replaced with a new body, the Inspectorate of Police Standards.
We couldn't be more thrilled at this reset.
Finally, there's one more reason the timing is perfect: the BBC needs it.
As the corporation struggles under the weight of its past mistakes and weathers serious attacks even from the president of the USA, it badly needs a hit drama to restore public goodwill. The Celebrity Traitors did it a lot of favours, but it needs more than one undeniable smash hit – the sort that makes headlines – and in more than one area of broadcasting.
So welcome back, Ted, Steve and Kate, it's not a moment too soon.
Line of Duty season seven begins filming in Belfast in spring 2026.
You can see Line of Duty seasons 1-6 on BBC iPlayer.
The new edition of Living Legends is here! Buy Ariana & Witches in newsagents or online, priced at just £8.99.
Editor, Digital Spy Chris has over 25 years' experience as a writer and editor, having worked as a journalist covering TV and movies since the '90s. Starting out as a TV listings editor at the Press Association, he was quickly hired by the nascent Heat magazine, where he rose to become Senior Editor, interviewing the likes of Simon Cowell, Boris Johnson and Paris Hilton. Over the years he has written about entertainment with clarity and wit for Heat, Elle, Q, The Telegraph and of course Digital Spy, and has served many times as a judge in the Royal Television Society awards. He has written and recorded a novelty single with Lord Lloyd-Webber, written scripts for the National TV Awards, made Noel Edmonds cry, accidentally punched an Inbetweener and stolen a small piece of rubble from the Battle of Hogwarts movie set. (They can't have it back.) LinkedIn
