COP OUT? (LINE OF DUTY, SERIES SIX)

Audiences waiting eagerly for a weekly fix of a TV cop show - who would have thought it?

But that is exactly what BBC1's corruption drama 'Line of Duty' has pulled off - a remarkable feat in this era of streaming and binge watching.

With its high octane action sequences, intense interrogation scenes and cat and mouse detective games, Jed Mercurio's series has pulled in ratings of 15 million people for its episodes this year.

That's an extraordinary achievement for a TV programme in this age - the kind of ratings 'Only Fools and Horses' pulled in during its heyday when there were no streaming services to distract us along with hundreds of other TV channels.

Mercurio has got a nation hooked on a diet of weekly cliffhanger episodes to the extent that missing it on a Sunday night feels like a criminal offence.

Miss it and you have to impose your own social media ban and wear ear plugs to work because if you don't, you run the risk having its twists and turns revealed on your news feed or in conversations on the bus, train, office or factory floor.

'Line of Duty' has this year also inspired an enjoyable BBC Sounds podcast 'Obsessed With Line of Duty' hosted by Craig Parkinson, the actor who played Dot Cottan from series one to three.

With hype, however, comes huge expectation.

And if you fail to meet that expectation, then prepare for one hell of a backlash.

Series six begins with the anti-corruption unit, AC-12 in a state of disarray.

Vicky McClure's Detective Inspector Kate Fleming has upped sticks and left for an investigative team headed by Kelly McDonald's Detective Superintendent Joanne Davidson that is focusing on the murder of journalist Gail Vella.

Martin Compston's Detective Sergeant Steve Arnott is getting itchy feet in AC-12 too and is trying to engineer a move out of the unit.

He's also popping painkillers like they're Smarties to treat a sore back sustained as a result of being thrown down a staircase in a previous series.

Then there's Adrian Dunbar's AC-12 head, Superintendent Ted Hastings who is clinging onto his job by his fingernails after he became the subject of an internal investigation in Series 5.

Ted survived the scrutiny but he is  being frozen out of senior police meetings by the top brass.

Nevertheless Ted and Steve continue to fight the good fight against bent coppers and soon have their attention drawn to Davidson's unit.

AC-12 starts to focus on the dodgy arrest of Tommy Jessop's Terry Cross, who has Down Syndrome and is accused of killing Vella.

Before Cross is arrested during a raid, Davidson bizarrely diverts her team for two hours after somehow managing to spot a robbery at a bookies while flying past in a police convoy.

In the subsequent confrontation, one of the suspects in the robbery is shot.

Arnott is contacted by one of Davidson's team, Anneika Rose's PC Farida Jatri about her superior's odd behaviour before Cross's arrest.

(SPOLIERS ALERT!!)

The audience subsequently learns that Jatri and Davidson are lovers and as they break up, Farida voices suspicions that her boss may be havibg an affair with Kate Fleming.

As Hastings, Arnott and Shalom Brune-Franklin's Detective Constable Chloe Bishop start to dig deeper into Davidson uncomfortable questions start to emerge about her links to a major criminal figure from the paat, her use of a laptop to communicate with the shadowy OCG, the attempt to frame Terry Boyle and also the death of an informer.

However Hastings faces increased pressure from his senior command for AC-12 to end its investigation into the OCG - the organised crime gang behind the police corruption and murders of previous series.

That also means an end to their efforts to unmask H, the mystery police officer who has masterminded the OCG's criminal activities through a network of corrupt cops.

Owen Teale's Chief Constable Philip Osborne is determined to kill any suggestions of corruption in the force.

Rather ominously, in their efforts to move the police on from allegations of links to organised crime, Osborne and his deputy Elizabeth Rider's Andrea Wise initiate moves to merge AC-12 with other units, lay off staff and also bring an end to Hastings' career.

They even bring back Anna Maxwell Martin's passive aggressive Detective Chief Superintendent Patricia Charmichael, who spearheaded the investigation into Ted in Series 5, to keep him in check.

Arnott's friendship with Kate Fleming means he inevitably gives her the heads up that Davidson and Nigel Boyle's Detective Superintendent Ian Buckles are becoming the focus of AC-12's investigation.

Davidson in turn becomes suspicious of Kate after their offices are raided, given her previous AC-12 background.

Matters are further complicated when Arnott discovers that Gregory Piper's Ryan Pilkington, a sociopathic young criminal with OCG links who attacked him in a previous series, has somehow managed to infiltrate the police and is now serving alongside Davidson and Fleming.

When a police car with Pilkington, a fellow officer and Terry Boyle smashes into a lake, suspicions are further aroused about Ryan after Kate turns up at the scene to discover his colleague is dead, their prisoner has barely survived and a rear car window was rolled down where he was sitting.

With Kate feeding information to Arnott about Davidson's increasingly erratic behaviour and Pilkington lurking, fears mount in AC-12 around Fleming's safety.

To make matters more nerve jangling, Arnott is dodging mandatory drug tests to avoid his addiction to painkillers being exposed.

He has also discovered a wad of cash in the home of Amy De Bhrun's Steph Corbett, whose husband John was killed while serving as an undercover agent in Series 5 and who he has also become entangled with.

Arnott realises the cash might be connected to the investigation into Ted and, as a result, question marks hang around "the Gaffer" and ultimately the very future of AC-12.

Are you keeping up?

If not, that's not entirely surprising as 'Line of Duty' has reached the point where it is cannibalising previous plots and characters to head spinning levels.

While Mercurio's ability to connect the dots from previous series to the present can be impressive, at times it can also be deeply infuriating and exhausting.

For much of season six, Mercurio leads the audience down a series of rabbit holes.

Some illuminate AC12's investigation into the OCG. Others appear to lead nowhere.

Fans of Channel 4's 'Gogglebox' will know that one of its participants, Jenny Newby has taken to watching the show with a jotter and a pen - scribbling down every morsel of police jargon.

Series six certainly makes you feel that every viewer in the UK should at least be issued for the duration of its run with a white board, some blue tac and photos of the cast by the BBC, similar to the ones used by the officers of AC-12, to help them keep up.

The first episode of the series is particularly perplexing, leaving many viewers scratching their heads as Mercurio pulls at a number of new narrative threads. 

The show recovers its sure footedness in the second episode and as the series progresses the threads weave together.

The problem for Mercurio, though, is as they do that, expectations soar.

Fans have been craving a big reveal in the final episode about the identity of H but they have also dreaded a major blow to the efforts of Arnott, Fleming and Hastings to expose corruption - with one of the trio even being killed off.

Ultimately, those expectations are not met and this has led to some of the audience complaining bitterly on social media that the big reveal has bee  a damp squib, that it is weak and unconvincing.

After six weeks of wild conspiracy theories throughout its run, some fans don't just feel let down, they feel they have been led up the Lagan in a bubble.

Instinct tells the diehard fan that there is at least one more series left in Mercurio's tank and that the BBC will announce it eventually, if not soon.

After all, too many questions still remain unanswered in the show.

As far as the performances go, Compston, McClure and Dunbar remain an engaging trio, injecting their characters with an intriguing mix of tub thumping integrity and vulnerability.

In her new unit, McClure's Fleming is as diligent as ever but there is also a sense that she is harbouring some resentment towards Ted and that her loyalty to her new boss is increasingly endangering her life.

Compston's Arnott is as dogged and ambitious as ever but he is also clearly worried about his career being brought to an abrupt end by his back injury and by the sinking reputation of "the Gaffer".

Dunbar's Hastings has become something of a national treasure with his quirky Northern Irish catchphrases and his chest beating speeches railing against the lack of police integrity.

However as the series wears on, there is a feeling that time is closing on him and his efforts to rid the force of corruption.

There is also the nagging fear that he will get tripped up by mistakes from previous series.

McDonald makes for an intriguing marquee guest star, keeping the audience guessing for much of the series about her character's true intentions.

Piper is also excellent as the sociopathic Ryan Pilkington, while Anna Maxwell Martin amuses as the ice cold Patricia Charmichael - swanning around AC-12 in her Darth Vader black coat and flashing her passive aggressive smile as she treats AC-12 and Ted, in particular, with contempt.

Nigel Boyle is amusing as the clownish DSI Ian Buckles, while Tommy Jessop does ab effective job as Terry Boyle.

Shalom Bruhne-Franklin proves to be a good addition to AC-12, while Perry Fitzpatrick as DS Chris Lomax in Davidson's team does enough to hint that there may be more to his character than meets the eye.

Teale, Rider, Ace Bharti as the Police Commissioner Rohan Sindwahni, Amy De Bhrun and Anneika Rose all do their bit.

George Costigan returns as the disgraced Chief Superintendent Patrick Fairbank who may or may not be feigning dementia.

Patrick Baladi's corrupt lawyer Jimmy Lakewell also has a moment to shine, while James Nesbitt teasingly appears during the course of the series in a non speaking fashion.

However that cameo only adds to the sense that Mercurio is playing games with his audience and that there is at least one more series to come.

Directors Daniel Nettheim, Gareth Bryn and Jennie Darnell do a decent job keeping Mercurio's stew boiling.

In rhe coming days and months, fans will debate how this series of 'Line of Duty' ranks among its predecessors 

Many will no doubt feel this series ended on a bit of an anti-climax.

Others will openly question the wisdom of Mercurio incessantly toying with his fans' sympathies and its labyrinthine plotting.

They may even feel he has led the show to a point where it is always going  to bowl short of audience expectations.

The constant teasing of the audience certainly risks irritating them and Mercurio will need to be careful that the love affair with the show doesn't sour.

'Line of Duty' has amusingly also created a whole community on social media that is eager to declare that they have not watched a single episode.

One Twitter exchange in particular stood out this year during the fifth episode.

Jim Gamble, a former senior policeman and ex-chief executive of the UK's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, had a back and forth with former BBC journalist Mike Philpott following the latter's declaration that he had never watched the programme 

During the exchange, Philpott asked Gamble if the show rubbed up police officers the same way that journalists often wince at depictions of their profession in film and television dramas.

"Definitely," he replied (correctly spelling the word, so as not to inflame fans' passions).

"It’s like someone got a load of police jargon and phrases, threw them in the air and mixed them into a Marvel comic.

"Good TV, no doubt but as close to reality as the Beano is to serious journalism."

Jim Gamble's observation is right.

'Line of Duty' is good TV but you would be a fool to take it too seriously.

Too many questions remain at the end of series six for it to have concluded at this point.

The public wants AC-12 to catch more bent coppers, so expect an announcement at some point about another series 

I suspect the BBC will want another series too.

Mother of God, Jed, it's time to stop teasing people and get writing, fella.

(Series 6 of 'Line of Duty' was broadcast on BBC1 from March 21-May 2, 2021)

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