A Chat with ‘Line of Duty’ creator Jed Mercurio
Popular BBC police drama Line of Duty's fifth season dropped on Acorn TV this week and I had the opportunity to chat with the show’s creator/writer Jed Mercurio. Learn how an internal medicine physician became the showrunner of the highest rated U.K. program of 2019 and what to expect from this newest installment.
If you aren’t familiar with this critically acclaimed British series, it’s a tense thriller set in the fictional police anti-corruption unit known as AC-12. Unrelenting twists and turns reveal dangerous secrets about shady law enforcement officers in cahoots with OCGs (Organized Crime Groups). The troubling question for the investigators and the viewers alike is, who can we trust?
After dutifully Googling around in advance to my phone interview with the Line of Duty head honcho, I learned that Mr. Mercurio was a physician prior becoming a very successful television series showrunner. How this career shift came about is quite an unexpected turn of events. Jed was working in a hospital as an internal medicine resident when he saw an ad in the British Medical Journal seeking doctors’ guidance for a new medical TV series. His suggestions for a more authentic, revisionist approach to portraying the medical profession morphed from a consultant role into a commission to write the 1990s BBC drama Cardiac Arrest.
