Blue Lights creator on Frank Blake's new character: 'There's something going on'
Blake plays new addition to the PSNI team, Shane Bradley.
Crime drama Blue Lights returned on Monday (15th April), with the first episode airing on BBC One and the full season being made available on BBC iPlayer.
For fans who have seen the first episode, they will have noticed the addition of Normal People star Frank Blake, who joins the show as new constable Shane Bradley. Bradley is added to the team by Murray Canning, and appears to have a flirtatious connection with Annie.
Speaking at a Q&A for the new season, co-creator Declan Lawn said of this connection: "Yeah, there's definitely something going on there. Frank's an amazing addition to the police family. Obviously we lost a big character in Gerry, and we can never replace a Gerry – he's a unique soul.
"But it did allow us to bring in new energy and I think with the response cops being a year in, then Frank comes in, and he's kind of a bit more experienced than them, it creates a really nice, interesting dynamic. He's been put there by Canning. So they right out of the gate know that there's something brewing."
Meanwhile, Blake himself spoke to RadioTimes.com and other press about his new role, explaining: "He enters the unit in a strange time of transition for them. Canning has brought him in and I don't know how many of those guys feel about Canning.
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"And I guess they're still kind of in mourning from the loss of Gerry, so he feels that atmosphere a little bit maybe. He's quite tentative with how he’s approaching things – they all have their own dynamics and relationships already that he's trying to figure out."
The new season of Blue Lights picks up a year after the first, and Lawn explained that the aftermath of Gerry's death was a driving factor in this decision.
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He said: "There's a few reasons for [the time jump]. One, we try to write characters very honest, so obviously, spoiler alert for those who haven't watched season 1, Gerry's death really would have – in an immediate continuance – consumed the characters, and that would have just been a different way of telling it.
"We kind of wanted to recognise the distillation, and the impact of his death is still there, but not have it be such an overbearing narrative on the season. So that was one of the driving factors, and there were others of course, but that was one of the primary ones."
Blue Lights is available to watch in full on BBC iPlayer.
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