Everything We Hope to See in 'Ridley' Season 2

When Ridley was initially announced in 2021, it was pretty apparent that ITV was aiming to land itself a new long-lived detective series, the kind that could easily run ten seasons until it achieved the sort of ubiquitous status of a Vera or a Father Brown. To that end, they hired writer Paul Matthew Thompson, who worked on both those series and cast Adrian Dunbar, who had become an A-list TV go-to star for his decade-long stint as Superintendent Ted Hastings in Line of Duty. Add an unusual hook centered around Dunbar's under-the-radar talents as a singer, and it felt like the show was a no-brainer.

However, not every show is a home run right out of the gate, and while there are some places where Ridley has real growth potential, there are places where it could stand to tinker with the format. The good news is that ITV renewed the show for a second season. (Notably, it waited until the series was about to premiere on PBS to decide to move forward, suggesting U.K. audiences also were tepid on the first season.) But with a cast as strong as this one, including Terence Maynard as boss DCI Paul Goodwin and Bronagh Waugh as Ridley's partner, DI Carol Farman, it would be a shame to see this series fail to grow.

One thing Ridley's producers will hopefully consider for Season 2 is that PBS will almost certainly continue to break up the show into eight episodes instead of airing them as four feature-length series. This is inter-PBS stuff, but suffice it to say Ridley is not a Masterpiece show, which means that it doesn't have the anthology's clout behind it to dictate how it airs if it wants to be part of the Sunday night berth. It will never be given the 9 p.m. ET feature-length slot of Endeavour, instead riding with a higher-profile Masterpiece series at 8 p.m. or 10 p.m. The quicker the series bows to that reality, the better off it will be.