SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Blue Lights Season 4, Episode 1.
Blue Lights Season 4 begins on BritBox with a storyline that’s disturbingly timely. The Season 4 premiere “Eyes” deals with anti-immigration sentiment and will strike an immediate chord with U.S. audiences. But the core of the new season is still the personal journeys of the patrol officers, even though they’re far from rookies now.
Creators Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson—who’ve already announced that they won’t be returning if the show is renewed for Season 5—waste no time whatsoever in getting to their core plot. Audiences see Grace Ellis and Stevie Neill on site when a migrant community center is besieged by an anti-immigrant mob, including (of course) a smart-mouthed social media influencer who antagonizes Grace in particular. This is already a tense and important storyline, given the debates and controversies about immigration over the last few years. But then Lawn and Patterson add a second layer, as there’s a violent counter-protest that erupts. So much happens in the first act, and most of the premiere takes place over the same day as the crew deals with the fallout, both professionally and emotionally.
That compressed timeline works because Lawn and Patterson let the audience live in the chaos in that first act. The use of first-person camera so that viewers see through the eyes of the police who find themselves under attack is particularly effective. In many shows, action sequences devolve into quick cuts amidst chaos, severing the emotional connection as fans just try to keep up with what’s going on. Blue Lights puts its audience in the thick of it, and so when the rest of the episode involves second-guessing choices and dealing with next steps, the viewers can actually relate. It’s not just a bunch of bureaucrat-speak.
To be fair, there is some more bureaucratic drama. Blue Lights Season 4 travels the well-worn path of the police force being undersupported and struggling to stay afloat. In the premiere, this manifests itself as Helen McNally finding out that the number-crunchers want to permanently close Blackthorn and making drastic choices as a result. She tells Sandra Cliff to focus more of their limited resources on the most basic things in order to get the team’s statistics up, and denies Grace’s well-deserved promotion and transfer to Child Protection. Aisling Byrne also finds out that her transfer has been denied—as does her boyfriend Tommy Foster, when she breaks up with him.
There’s always personal drama in any procedural, but the Blue Lights Season 4 premiere keeps it from overshadowing the seriousness of the overall plot. Once again, it’s Siân Brooke who’s front and center as Grace’s faith is shaken by having her dream job taken away from her with a half-assed explanation. Grace and Stevie only have one really personal scene, but Brooke and Martin McCann are wonderful as Stevie tells Grace she can’t lose faith, because if she does, they all do. He’s exactly right. Grace is the heart of Blue Lights and the show goes as she goes.
“Eyes” also puts some weight on Katherine Devlin, when a frustrated Annie goes the extra mile after learning that community organizer Amira is being specifically targeted by the hate group. Annie is the voice of the audience in this episode; she’s willing to stick her neck out when the only official solution is a piece of paper. Her choice is clearly influenced by what she went through in Season 3, as Shane Bradley points out, but it’s also nice to know that Lawn and Patterson are keeping that in mind and not just chucking a storyline aside because it was last year. From an acting standpoint, it’s fun to see different character combinations like Annie and Shane, Grace and Annie, or most notably Tommy and Sandra. Sandra is Tommy’s shoulder to lean on after he loses Aisling, and their scenes are quiet but they resonate meaningfully. It’s always good to see that the support and camaraderie isn’t just between the patrol officers—that it also extends to management.
If there’s a weakness in “Eyes,” it’s in re-establishing the storyline from Season 3. There’s a detour to reveal that Tina McIntyre is out and about, still scheming with Dana Morgan and trying to wrangle her son Mo, and those scenes are the least compelling because they lack any urgency or much new information. Nothing much has changed in that regard. Obviously that part of the season will be developed in subsequent episodes, but in this context, it’s kind of boring compared to the main plotline.
Blue Lights has clearly established what themes its intends to cover this season and where its characters are going, which is the core mission of any premiere. Fans know what to look forward to and have reasons to care about it. Not a ton of time has passed, yet all of the main characters feel like they’ve changed, some in greater ways than others. The social media and bureaucracy elements may not be new, but they’re still relevant, and Lawn and Patterson find ways to make them interesting. Blue Lights Season 4 is off to a nail-biting, compelling start.
Blue Lights streams Thursdays on BritBox. Photo Credit: Courtesy of BritBox.
Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.
