Line of Duty: Trailer, certificate and where to watch
Must-watch crime drama with a host of top-notch guest stars
Year: 2012-
Certificate: 15
After a solid first series, Jed Mercurio's corrupt cops and gangsters show steadily built a following that turned into something of a national sensation. When the show's sixth and final series aired in 2021, it felt like the whole country was waiting for the identity of the sinister organised crime puppetmaster H to be revealed.
As well as that overarching villain, each series focused on a different guest star, a senior police officer whose moral compass was tested to breaking point. In the first it was Lennie James's Tony Gates, whose downfall helps set the scene inside police anti-corruption unit AC-12 which was to be our HQ for the full six-series run.
DS Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) joins the unit and is partnered with Vicky McClure's DC Kate Fleming, with Adrian Dunbar as their resolute, inviolable superintendent Ted Hastings.
Each series can be appreciated as a standalone story, one that will draw you in to the nefarious dealings of the cop under suspicion, but the reward of watching this show comes from the accumulation of clues over the whole run and a ruthlessness that regularly unseats your expectations. The guest cast were all familiar names - Keeley Hawes, Daniel Mays, Thandie Newton, Stephen Graham and Kelly Macdonald - but none of them are treated kindly.
A seventh series has now officially been confirmed by the BBC. (Six series)
