BritBox Announces a New 'Lynley' Series Reboot
Rumors have swirled since June 2024 about a possible reboot of The Inspector Lynley Mysteries. It took until October, but the BBC and BritBox have finally released an update. The new series, Lynley, is officially heading to TV in 2025 as production begins in Ireland. Based on the Lynley Mysteries by writer Elizabeth George, the new series will star Sanditon's Leo Suter as the titular detective DI Tommy Lynley, the Oxford-educated Earl of Asherton, and Ted Lasso's Sofia Barclay as his working-class partner-in-crime-solving, DS Barbara Havers.
The Lynley Mysteries were a hit out of the gate after 1988's A Great Deliverance, George's debut novel, won an Agatha Award. The original adaptation, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, debuted in 2001 and aired six seasons on the BBC and PBS's Mystery!/Masterpiece Mystery. (The final season aired in the U.S. after the Great Masterpiece Rebranding.) The series featured Nathaniel Parker (Merlin) as Lynley, Sharon Small (Flesh & Blood) as Havers, and a rotating cast as Lynley's love interest Helen, including Emma Fielding (Van der Valk), Lesley Vickerage (Lewis), and Catherine Russell (Poirot). The first two seasons covered the 12 books published up to that point before going off on its own tangent in Season 3.
The new series will have more material to work with; George is up to 21 novels, the most recent being 2022's Something to Hide. Also, the double-digit episode seasons made up of the mystery of the week trend of the '90s and '00s (which eats through novels) is no longer as prevalent a format; prestige series prefer one case per season, which seems likely for the new show, which is four feature-length episodes, which means the new series has years of material to work from.
