4 out of 5 

Created by: Jed Mercurio

covers seasons 1 – 6

I’m going to temper myself here a bit with a reminder: that I thought that the first season of Line of Duty, some momentary shocks and thrills aside, was pretty trash. Browsing some glowing reviews of the show – but skimming, so as to bestly avoid spoilers – I was seeing praise that didn’t quite dissuade me from my take: that people were swept up in the show’s flash, and thus apparently forgiving of its pretty flagrantly bad writing, and stereotypical “edgy” characters (i.e. the dated-when-it-was-made Shield model of ‘how corrupt can you be and still keep the audience on your side?). I had the benefit of streaming this stuff, admittedly, which robs the tension of a week-long cliffhanger, and makes it easier to see how forced some exchanges and plot threads were, in order to provide completely ridiculous (and otherwise illogical) story roadblocks for hollow characters to barrel through. And then what stuck out the most in the season, besides how hackneyed this writing was, was just how dumb – drawing stupid conclusions; making unbelievably silly procedural errors – its apparent smart cops seemed to be. 

Six seasons down, and I’m an LoD junky, constantly impressed by how deftly plotted the show is, and at how well integrated into these plots the characters have become. And, interestingly, I wouldn’t say the show that developed is so far estranged from its origins. It’s rather as though we’ve witnessed anti-corruption officers Steve (Martin Compston) and Kate (Vicky McClure) essentially learning from these stupid mistakes, and their unit chief, Ted (Adrian Dunbar) learning how to get the most out of his agents. And while the “memory” of the show is fantastic, tying small and large pieces from that first season into small and large pieces of the seasons that follow, we’re not quite there until the third season. But once it crosses that line, no pun intended – when Steve’s and Kate’s competence exceeds the eye-rolling nature of their flubs (seeming more realistically human than written-for-ratings archetypes), and the season long arcs get more rapaciously unsympathetic and grey-moraled (again, feeling more “real”) – once we get there, the show just fires on all cylinders, every interaction dense with little worthwhile beats; every clue well earned, through organically written circumstance or hard work; and every machination thrown our leads’ ways clever and frustratingly in all the best, edge-of-year seat ways, ramping up rather amazingly given how the show is, at least in part, just talking heads, saving bloodshed for jaw-dropping punctuation. 

To that last point, while the show proves a habit of kicking each season off with a death, it’s never not stunning when it happens, and the same is true when we shed cast along the way – while the show is initially clumsy in displaying how senseless and violent and cyclical crime and policing can be, it’s nevertheless effective, and thus even more so when the writing shapes up. 

And you don’t have to wait that long for that, with only the first season being poor. By season two, you can feel it start to click, thanks to a devastating performance by Keeley Hawkins, playing the season’s main suspect, but still the show is feeling out how cheekily evil its villains should be, or how petty Kate should be, or how much of a lout Steve should be, or how aghast Ted should be at every instance of police corruption. 

So while I maybe missed out on weekly cliffhangers, the streaming model also brought immense joy in watching this show “grow up,” and while I don’t think the overarching maturing of its characters skills was wholly purposeful, it’s a fun narrative to apply, and once the writers do start syncing up, it makes you fall in love with the show in its entirety, uncomfortable youth and all. 

Line of Duty is about some cops who investigate crooked cops. Each season focuses on one central case, with an overarching story about systematic corruption in the force.