'Trigger Point' Snapped Up by BritBox After Failing to Light Up Peacock
Vicky McClure as Lana ‘Wash’ Washington in 'Trigger Point' Season 2
HTM PRODUCTIONS FOR ITV
Jed Mercurio's Line of Duty didn't so much end as disappear without a word after its sixth season, the most watched to date. The show was the BBC's biggest hit at the time, but in true U.K. TV fashion, it just never got a seventh season commissioned. Instead, Mucurio wandered off and began doing other projects under his HTM Television banner, starring his favorite actors from over Line of Duty's six seasons. Among his shows are D.I. Ray, written by Maya Sondhi, Bloodlands, starring James Nesbitt, Payback with Prasanna Puwanarajah, and Trigger Point with Vicky McClure. The first aired on PBS, the middle two went to BritBox, and the last landed on the highest-profile streaming service, Peacock.
However, of the four, Trigger Point did the worst, lost on the NBC streamer, unmarketed, and unnoticed by audiences. At Content London 2023, BritBox announced it would pick the rights up to Trigger Point along with Blue Lights, though the details were kept under wraps at the time, as the rights at Peacock had not quite expired. But with the series now leaving the NBC streamer (poor Vigil, all alone on Peacock, stuck between The Traitors and the WWE), and Season 1 heading to BritBox in April, those who missed Vicky McClure's leading turn as Lana Washington (called Wash) as part of London's bomb diffusing elite will get a chance to check her out all over again for the first time.
McClure's character, Washington, is described in the show's logline as "an ex-military bomb disposal operative who brings her Afghan War training to London's Expos, the top bomb disposal squad of Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism unit." Her co-star Adrian Lester (Life) plays her partner in bomb disarmament, Joel Nutkins. The series follows the same formula as Line of Duty and Bodyguard in that it is a "case of the season" story.
Here's the series' official synopsis:
Set in the high-pressured world of bomb disposal, Trigger Point stars Vicky McClure and Adrian Lester as frontline officers who must risk their lives during a terrorist campaign in the heart of London. When a terrorist campaign threatens the capital over one summer, the Expos are at the forefront of urgent efforts to find out who is behind the bombings before fatalities escalate. Under extreme pressure and searching for answers, Lana becomes suspicious that the bomber is premeditatedly targeting her unit – but how does she prove it and discover the bomber’s real identity?
McClure and Lester co-star with Mark Stanley (Game of Thrones), Warren Brown (Luther), Kerry Godliman (Whitstable Pearl), and Cal MacAninch (The Essex Serpent). Others co-starring in the show include Ewan Mitchell (World on Fire), Eric Shango (Suspicion), Nadine Marshall (Champion), Kris Hitchen (The Long Shadow), Cris Haris (Master of the Air), Kevin Eldon (Hijack), and Tamzin Griffin (The ABC Murders).
The series was created and written by Daniel Brierley (Checkpoint), with Mercurio producing alongside Jimmy Mulville (Bloodlands), Mark Redhead (Bodies), Jessica Sharkey (Derry Girls), and Julia Stannard (War and Peace). The six episodes were directed by Gilles Bannier (Marcella) and Jennie Darnell (Death in Paradise).
All six episodes of Trigger Point Season 1 land on BritBox on Wednesday, April 17, 2024.
