Adrian Dunbar, who plays Superintendent Hastings in Jed Mercurio’s massive hit BBC series “Line of Duty,” has spoken about a potential seventh season of the series.
The acclaimed British police procedural, about an anti-corruption unit in the U.K. police, had its sixth season run early last year and pulled in an average viewership of 15.4 million – making it the UK’s highest-rated TV drama in thirteen years.
However, there’s been no word in regards to when or even if a seventh season might go into production – the sixth season wrapped in a way it could serve as the show’s end. Dunbar, speaking with The Times of London, says it’s up to Mercurio in regards to what comes next, and it may not take the form of a six-episode series like previous seasons:
“There’s a big appetite for more ‘Line of Duty.’ It could be three or four episodes, I don’t think there’s going to be six for some reason. It might be two 90 minutes. But it’s all entirely down to Jed what the storyline is going to be. It’s a big ask for him.”
One thing is certain though, it’s that the sixth season met a mixed reception with its big reveal of a near decade-long mystery – the identity of ‘H’ – considered a bit underwhelming for a show built on genuine surprise reveals and twists. Dunbar defends the choices made, saying:
“It may not have been dramatically satisfying and I can understand why people went, ‘Oh my God!’ But it was a proper way to conclude, to show that actually some of the biggest stuff that happens is very simply an ordinary cop not passing on information because he’s been asked not to and that’s the one thing that can make a heist work.
Nobody knew what ‘Line of Duty’ was going to be. When you’re writing series two, you might start thinking, ‘This could go to three or four’ – but six. And it’s very difficult to introduce a new character, a Mr. Big at the end of the sixth season. You realise that it has to be somebody we’ve already seen – it can’t be somebody from absolutely nowhere. So it was a tricky place to be in.”
Before now Mercurio has offered no updates in regards to any more potential “Line of Duty,” but Dunbar says he, Mercurio and his two co-stars Martin Compston and Vicky McClure are meeting again at the end of the month, at which time we might hear something.
Dunbar will next be seen in ITV’s “Ridley” which premieres on August 28th.