'Blue Lights' Season 3 Trailer Brings Complications & Cupcakes

The 2020s will be remembered for many things. However, one small part of the entertainment landscape will probably end up overlooked: the sharp increase in murder mysteries and police procedural television in the Western world. From true crime to dramatic thrillers to cozy crime, these shows, referred to in the aggregate as "copaganda" because they paint law enforcement in a relentlessly positive light, are formulaic, didactic series in which law and order and the justice system work for the people, and fair outcomes are achievable for those who stick to their moral code.

The audience's increasing retreat into that fantasy over the last five years serves as a reminder of the human brain's need for a sense of societal order to feel secure. However, while most shows that fall into this category, from CSI and NCIS in the U.S. to the SOKO series in Germany, are clockwork-level predictable, at least one, Blue Lights, is less interested in heroism and more interested in the landscape where the police traditionally represented oppression, and how that attitude affects their jobs today.

Set in Belfast, the series focuses on three rookie cops, one of whom is old enough to remember the Troubles and two who have never known living with that sort of terrorism every day. All three believe in law enforcement and that the institution that was once the tool of the U.K. to suppress the IRA is good now. Whether or not that's true is questionable, but that's just one more reason why Blue Lights is worth your time. Copaganda, told from the perspectives of those unaware of the system's corruption, provides the audience with a glimpse into the reality behind the fiction that many police officers genuinely believe in.

Here's the Season 3 synopsis:

Two years into their jobs as response officers, Grace, Annie, and Tommy are accustomed to life under the blue lights. But their work will take them into a sinister world hidden behind the veneer of middle-class life, the world of the accountants and lawyers facilitating organized crime. The old political and criminal order has gone, and a new global gang rules Belfast, bringing danger closer to home for our officers than ever before.

Blue Lights returning cast for Season 3 includes Siân Brooke (Trying) as Grace, Martin McCann (Wolf) as Stevie, Katherine Devlin (The Day of the Jackal) as Annie, and no-longer-quite-a-newcomer Nathan Braniff as Tommy. The series ensemble also includes Joanne Crawford (Small Things Like These) as Helen, Andi Osho (The Sandman) as Sandra, Frank Blake (Normal People) as Shane, Abigail McGibbon (The Lovers) as Tina, Dearbháile McKinney (Kneecap) as Aisling, and Andrea Irvine (Dead Shot) as Nicola.

Season 3 also adds two longtime BBC stars to the series as regulars, Michael Smiley (Bad Sisters) as intelligence officer Paul ‘Colly’ Collins, and Cathy Tyson (Criminal Record) as private members club owner, Dana Morgan.

Series creators Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson once again penned all six episodes for the show's third season, with Season 1 director Jack Casey splitting helming duties with Angela Griffin (Waterloo Road). Lawn and Patterson also executive produce with Stephen Wright for Two Cities Television, Louise Gallagher for Gallagher Films, and Nick Lambon for the BBC.

Blue Lights Season 3 is expected to debut on the BBC in the autumn of 2025, with the series to follow on BritBox in early 2026.