Jed Mercurio

The thriller follows Lana Washington (Vicky McClure, Line of Duty), a bomb disposal operative or ‘expo’ doing her best to keep London safe. Also reprising their roles for the third series are Nabil Elouahabi (Blue Lights), Eric Shango (On The Edge), Maanuv Thiara (DI Ray) and Natalie Simpson (North Sea Connection).

The third series sees Lana and her team uncover a revenge plot targeting a string of people. The Bomb Disposal Squad work with the Police Counterterrorism Unit to find the culprit before they can take another life.

Four years ago, the UK identified its first cases of a new, highly infectious disease. Within two months, Covid-19 had claimed the lives of thousands of people and the country found itself in an eerie lockdown.

Behind closed hospital doors, the scene was very different: it was one of chaos, as an unprepared and overwhelmed health service struggled to keep people alive.

Jed Mercurio is bringing his trademark high-octane thrills to ITV with a new drama set in a bomb disposal squad. Sunday-night viewers are currently being subjected to big bangs and nerve-shredding tension as a bombing campaign terrorises London.

Trigger Point stars Vicky McClure as an “expo”, a bomb disposal officer who takes the “long walk” towards a suspect device before attempting to defuse it.

As this RTS exploration of powerful moments in TV political interviews unfolded, it quickly became clear just how extraordinary 2020 has been, even in an era of jaw-dropping statements from politicians and startling TV encounters.

John Whittingdale, MP, Minister of State for Media and Data, speaking at an RTS event said that in the 1980s ITV’s Brian Walden would devote all his hour-long programme to a set-piece interview with a senior politician.  

“Several times I helped Margaret Thatcher prepare for a Walden interview,” he recalled. “We don’t have that in-depth interview any longer.

Filming for the new series started up again in September and is still ongoing, with Adrian Dunbar, Vicky McClure and Martin Compston reprising their roles as detectives Superintendent Ted Hastings, DI Kate Fleming and DS Steve Arnott.

AC-12, the anti-corruption unit, will be met with a new, inscrutable adversary called DCI Joanne Davidson, played by Kelly Macdonald (Giri/Haji),

The series will pick up a year and a half after the closure of Operation Pear Tree, with Hastings returning to head up the unit after his exoneration at the end of series five.

Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio decided he probably should learn to write – after he’d already penned a hit BBC drama series. “I did it backwards,” the former medic told the RTS Midlands Careers Fair 2020.

Mercurio had been a junior doctor working in Birmingham hospitals when he replied to an advert in the British Medical Journal. It had been placed by a production company looking for drama ideas.