Series / Blue Lights

Blue Lights is a 2023 British Cop Show (also Police Procedural) that follows three trainee police officers during their probationary period at Blackthorn police station in Belfast. Two seasons have aired in the UK.

BBC has renewed the show for two more seasons.

Not to be confused with the 1966 TV show that aired in the US.

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Blue Lights provides examples of:

• …And That Little Girl Was Me: Gerry explains that he was the "wee pal" who was with Happy the day his father and big brother were killed by a car bomb.
• Bigot with a Badge: How the PSNI is viewed by Catholics. One scene features Tommy looking conflicted when he sees a poster claiming that the PSNI arrests five times as many Catholics as Protestants.
• Boom, Headshot!: Jim Dixon gets this fate when he gets shot twice in the head by Craig McQuarrie.
• Bring My Brown Pants: The station has its own colour-coded threat chart known as "Colin's Code", with "Brown" being the highest threat level. Colin was a probationer who shat himself when he mistook kids planting fireworks under his and Gerry's patrol car for a car bomb.
• Call-Back:
  • In "The Code", when Grace and Stevie show up at Angela Mackle's house to let her know that Gordy's been arrested, Angela freaks out when she sees them at the door because she thinks they're about to tell her that Gordy's dead. Stevie reassures her that if they were going to do something serious like that, he'd be wearing his hat. In "Love Hurts", when he and Grace have to attend a suspicious death, he puts his hat on.
  • When Tommy and Aisling go on their first date, Tommy mentions that Aisling's grown out the undercut she had when they first met in "The Q Word".
• Calling the Cops on the FBI: Gerry and Tommy, two response police officers, mistakenly pull over a pair of MI5 operatives due to their vehicle (an older VW Passat with a new license plate) appearing suspicious.
• Calling Your Attacks: All the cops are required to give the warning "Armed Police" when they draw their guns, even though it's common knowledge amongst the public that PSNI officers are armed by default.
• Category Traitor: Presumably this is how the Republican factions that threatened Helen and Annie's lives view them.
• Chekhov's Skill: Combined with former Workplace-Acquired Abilities. It is mentioned in the first episode that Grace is a former social worker, who decided to become a police officer in her forties. Therefore, she is very good at de-escalation and interacting with children, teenagers and young adults to help try and get them on side.
• Cop Hater: The police are not particularly well-liked by the general public, Catholic or Protestant alike. Officers often end up leaving the scene while projectiles are being thrown at their patrol cars.
• Cop Killer: Eoin O'Sullivan, the Dublin drug kingpin who guns down Gerry.
• Cop Killer Manhunt: After Gerry is killed, the team go all out to find anyone who was involved with the shooting, including arresting two fleeing MI5 operatives at gunpoint and taking them into custody.
• Cowboy Cop: DS Murray Canning and PC Shane Bradley, who frequently bend and sometimes break the rules in order to obtain intelligence to further their enquiries.
• Culturally Religious: The homes of Catholic characters are decorated with bits of religious paraphernalia you might expect to see in a Catholic home, such as crosses or paintings of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but none of them appear to have any strong religious convictions.
• Da Chief: Chief Superintendent Nicola Robertson, the District Commander of the fictional Lagan District (which covers Belfast and the surrounding areas) and Jen's mother. She reports directly to the Chief Constable.
• Defective Detective: DS Murray Canning. Although he works a hard role in intelligence policing and investigates some of the worst of the worst in respect of paramilitary and criminal violence, he is still shown to be a hardass to his colleagues and an arrogant misogynist, as well as brokering unofficial agreements with sectarian criminal leaders to ensure visible crime rates remain at a lower level to not necessitate police involvement.
• Dirty Cop: Downplayed. All the officers regularly remove their name badges before entering situations that are likely to turn particularly violent or nasty. It's unclear if this is to make them more difficult to identify (they still have their individual numbers on their epaulettes) or if it's so individual officers can't be clocked as having a Catholic or Protestant name depending on who they're dealing with.
• Disappeared Dad: Rory, Gordy's dad, is apparently long dead, as James McIntyre has been paying a pension to Angela as compensation for his work for the paramilitary organisation that he and James both belonged to. Neither Cal's nor Annie's fathers are anywhere to be seen.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Sergeant McCloskey, the stern and by-the-book instructor from Garnerville who is in charge of public order training for both new recruits and seasoned officers.
• Due to the Dead: The station has a photoboard commerating officers who've been killed in the line of duty.
• Fair-Weather Friend: One of Cal's friends is very quick to openly accuse people of being racist towards Cal, even when Cal tells him to drop it. When Cal actually gets into an altercation with a police officer, he legs it.
• Fictional Counterpart: Although the series got permission to use the actual PSNI name and branding, the police district names used throughout are fictional.
  • The main characters, who are based in Belfast, are part of the Lagan District, a fictional version of the Belfast City District.
  • Constable Aisling Byrne, who is based in Derry, is part of the Foyle District, a fictional version of the Derry City and Strabane District.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: Lee Thompson is a former soldier, who along with Craig McQuarrie and several more of his ex-military friends begins to slowly usurp the power of the existing loyalist criminal factions on the Mount Eden estate. This includes carrying out several murders and becoming involved in the drug trade.
• Generic Cop Badges: Inverted. Unlike many UK television shows the series actually got permission to use the real PSNI logo, uniform, branding and badges.
• "Get Out of Jail Free" Card: After his operatives are arrested fleeing the location where Gerry is shot, Joseph sends over a Public Interest Immunity Certificate to the police station custody suite they are taken to, which results in Inspector Johnston granting the agents immediate release, much to his subordinates chagrin.
• The Great British Copper Capture: A rare inversion. As the series is set in Northern Ireland, all of the police characters carry personal protection weapons (a Glock 17 pistol) both on and off duty, thereby being suitably equipped to respond to any armed criminal intervention.
• Hot Pursuit:
  • "Colin's Code" opens with Grace and Stevie chasing down Gordy Mackle in James McIntyre's stolen car.
  • "Love the One You're With" opens with the pursuit of MI-5 counter-terrorism operatives as they try and exit the scene where Gerry was shot.
• Idiot Ball: The MI5 officers and their leader make several bad decisions and bear some of the responsibility for the events that take place in the series.
  • For starters, one of the cars that they use, a ten-year-old VW Passat, has a newer license plate. This attracts Gerry's attention when the car passes in front of him and prompts a traffic stop.
  • The driver of the Passat, an undercover officer, is a Smug Snake who acts unprofessionally. This gets him and his partner arrested after running from an officer-involved shooting and punched in the face by one of Gerry's colleagues when they're forced to let them go. Later on, they're both taken off field duty and assigned to protect Gordy and Sarah Mackle.
  • When an undercover op goes south and Gerry gets shot, the same undercover officer and his partner are ordered to evacuate. Instead of calmly and quietly making their way out and blending in with city traffic, the driver instead speeds recklessly down narrow streets in the same VW Passat. This gets the attention of police officers responding to an officer-involved shooting and refuses to pull over despite armed police officers in pursuit.
  • Their leader all but bullies his liaison, Jonty, into issuing OOBs without giving him a reason why that he could give his officers. The police officers under his command bristle and break said OOBs more than once, eventually leading to Gerry's death, James and Mo's arrest, and Jonty's resignation over the whole mess.
• In-Series Nickname: Gerry calls the undercover MI5 officers the "sneaky beakys".
• Internal Affairs: Unlike other police forces, where complaints against officers are investigated, at least in the first instance, by other cops, the PSNI is answerable to the Office of the Police Ombudsman, an independent public body.
  • "Full Moon Fever" is framed around a series of preliminary interviews conducted by Geraldine Gilroy, who's brought in to investigate an Article 2 incident that happened the previous night.
  • "This Too Shall Pass" again see's Geraldine Gilroy questioning Grace after she drew her weapon on, and nearly shot, a suspect.
• The Irish Mob:
  • The McIntyres work with Irish gangster Eoin O'Sullivan from Dublin as part of their drug-dealing business.
  • After O'Sullivan is killed, both Tina McIntyre and Lee Thompson work with Fogerty, O'Sullivan's cousin and successor, in supplying drugs to Belfast.
• Ironic Nickname: Happy, given that he suffers from debilitating depression as a result of childhood trauma.
• Jaywalking Will Ruin Your Life: When Stevie and Grace arrest the MI5 operatives fleeing the scene of Gerry's murder, the lead agent Mark Blundell asks what he is being arrested for. After a brief pause, Stevie tells him it is for "dangerous driving".
• Jurisdiction Friction: Trying to police an area also under surveillance by MI5 is a major source of conflict throughout the show.
• Knee-capping: JP Junior gets kneecapped for dealing outside his designated patch.
• Lawman Baton: Carried by all officers in addition to their pistols, and usually the first option for use of force.
• Loan Shark: One of several criminal enterprises Davy Hamill's loyalist gang runs on the Mount Eden estate. When Lee Thompson takes over, he speaks with a young mother who was loaned £900, but over a year later still owes over £1000 back due to high interest rates.
• Mama Bear: AfterJP Junior gets shot, Mo shows up as he and his family are about to move away in a failed attempt at intimidation. His mother comes right up to him and tells him that if he ever hurts her son again, she'll kill him.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": Mo and the others who aren't Sully have one when he shoots Gerry, a police officer. This is followed immediately by everyone pulling a Screw This, I'm Out of Here! when Jen comes out, shooting and killing Sully.
• Minority Police Officer: PC Grace Ellis is an English woman originally from Staffordshire, unlike her probationary and experienced colleagues who are all from Northern Ireland.
• New Meat: Grace Ellis, Annie Conlon, Tommy Foster and Jen Robinson are all probationary constables.
• Off on a Technicality: The police actually manage to pull one off in their favour in "Full Moon Fever." Chief Superintendent Robinson reveals that Geraldine did not get the correct written authorisation to carry out her Article 2 investigation, thereby voiding all the interviews she had just done with the officers at the station.
• Old Cop, Young Cop:
  • Sergeant Helen McNally and PC Annie Conlon.
  • PC Gerry Cliff (who is later revealed to be a former Special Branch Inspector who was demoted due to his dissatisfaction with the groups actions in the lead up to the Good Friday Agreement) and fast track PC Tommy Foster.
  • Played with with PC Stevie Neil and PC Grace Ellis. Although they are roughly the same age, they have this dynamic as Grace is a probationer and former social worker who decided to join the police in her forties whereas Stevie is a training officer with many years of experience.
• Old-Fashioned Copper: Part of the show's draw is meant to be showing how policing in Northern Ireland deviates from the more benevolent image of the Old-Fashioned Copper, mostly with the use of weapons. Unlike the rest of the UK, all officers (including the probationers) carry firearms. At the start of the series, Tommy's at risk of not passing out at all because he's such a terrible shot. If he were trying to become a regular beat cop in any other police service in the UK, this wouldn't be a major issue. The opening episode also shows that in addition to the officer's sidearms, the patrol cars all have a massive rifle in the boot that can be used as a secondary weapon.
• Pet the Dog: After the shooting Jen finally comes clean about why she started the affair with Jonty, admits that she used him, and encourages him to not leave his wife and children.
• Police Brutality:
  • Annie bashes the nose of a man she's arrested for sexual assault into the roof of her patrol car while trying to get him into the back seat.
  • Stevie loses his cool and chokes Jim Dixon whilst arresting him after he tries to assault Grace during a stop and search.
• Police Are Useless: Deconstructed in "Full Moon Fever" where the lack of manpower and resources leads directly to members of the public being harmed. Explored again in "This Too Shall Pass", when lack of available custody cells results in an offender not being arrested, resulting in him committing a more violent offense later in the day.
• Police Pig: The standard derogatory term for police officers in Northern Ireland is "Peelers".
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Craig McQuarrie gets one on Jim Dixon before he shoots him dead in his own house.

Craig: Close your eyes. It's easier.

• Protection Racket: One of the many criminal schemes run by loyalist Jim Dixon on the Mount Eden estate. Before he usurps him, Lee Thompson is forced to pay him £500 a week in order to keep his pub and taxi company safe.
• Pursue the Dream Job: Grace finally decides to bite the bullet and become a police officer in her early forties, after a previously successful career as a social worker.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Helen delivers one to Jonty about him and Jen when she discovers that the two of them have been having an affair. Jen is selfish is only using Jonty so that she can have an easy time at the station. Helen also points out that Jonty's put himself in a position where Jen could easily turn on him and say that their relationship wasn't one between two consenting adults but a case of Sexual Extortion.
• Renegade Splinter Faction: The death threat against Annie has apparently come from some vaguely defined "dissident Republicans".
• Sex at Work: Jonty and Jen have sex in the station's first aid room, where they are overheard by Helen.
• Shout-Out: Stevie plays The Bonnevilles when it's his turn to pick the music in his and Grace's patrol car.
• Shown Their Work: While the PSNI vehicle decals are different from the actual ones, the PSNI insignia/uniforms/gear are actually in use with the force.
• Sleeping with the Boss: PC Jen Robertson is revealed to be in a sexual relationship with Inspector David Johnston, which explains his preferential treatment of her such as allowing her to build case files instead of carry out patrols. She later confesses it was simply so she could progress in her career.
• Straw Misogynist: DS Murray Canning, especially to his subordinate female colleagues.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Jonty is compelled to resign after the incident that left Gerry dead, his failure to properly document his interactions with MI5, his failure to tell his officers the bare minimum about the OOBs and his affair with Jen.
  • It doesn't matter if you're an undercover agent. If you're driving a car recklessly through narrow public streets, lead police on a pursuit and refuse to stop, they will keep pursuing you and they will catch you and put you under arrest. Nor are they going to let you go solely on your word. Especially if you were running from where a police officer got shot and later died.
  • Jen, having gone through the trauma of losing Gerry to a shooting that she was directly involved in finally comes to realize that she can not continue to be a police officer and resigns.
  • It doesn't matter what "they" owe you, if it's not a legally-binding agreement, the people you made a deal with can change the rules and conditions any time they want to. James McIntyre and Mo end up getting arrested instead of extracted after their mishandling of the operation is held over their leader's head.
  • The shooting death of a police officer is guaranteed to put a target on the backs of the shooter, his accomplices and anyone else present OOBs be damned. It also immediately results in the death of the shooter at the hands of his partner.
  • Unlike her predecessor, Tina McIntyre is not a push-over and is clearly going to be far more careful in her dealings with MI5.
• SWAT Team: Although all officers in Northern Ireland carry sidearms for personal protection, there is still a specialist Armed Response Unit of officers trained in a greater variety of weapons (including less-lethal and Taser) available for more serious violent incidents.
• Swiss Bank Account: The counter-terrorism group has one for the McIntyre family in the event of an extraction.
• Taken Off the Case: Jonty bars Grace from having any further interaction with Angela Mackle after Joseph tells Jonty that Angela Mackle is OOB.
• There Are No Therapists:
  • Gerry knows that Happy needs proper psychiatric help, but tries to help him out wherever he can because he knows how unlikely it is that Happy will ever be able to access that help.
  • Nicola remarks to Jen that she never sought any professional help after shooting dead Eoin O'Sullivan after he killed Gerry, and instead chose to bury herself in her new work as a solicitor seeking justice for those who were wronged in The Troubles.
• Tomato Surprise: It isn't until the end of "Bad Batch" that we find out that Gerry and Sandra are married.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Tragically, Gerry, who went into an area that he wasn't supposed to be in, alone and without backup, gets shot by Eoin O'Sullivan, and later dies.
  • Then, Eoin O'Sullivan finds out the hard way why shooting a police officer is an incredibly stupid thing to do. Seconds after Jen hears the shots, she comes into the fray and kills him. In any case, even though he didn't know, shooting a police officer who later dies in broad daylight and in an area under surveillance by MI-5 counter-terrorism is as dumb as it gets.
• Western Terrorists: Nationalist paramilitaries are present and happy to use the iconography of the IRA, like balaclavas and kneecapping, but are far more interested in selling drugs than planting bombs or shooting police officers. This is realistic, as paramilitaries on both sides have used it as a major income source (sometimes cooperating in this), while other factions have engaged in vigilante targeting of dealers.
• You Do Not Have to Say Anything: The first episode features Grace delivering a caution that varies slightly from the usual version seen in cop shows set in England:
  "I'm arresting you under suspicion of taking a vehicle without the owner's consent. You do not have to say anything, but I must caution you that if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court it may harm your defence. If you do say anything it may be given in evidence. Do you understand the caution?"