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The fourth season of Blue Lights attempts to address the rise of extremism in Northern Ireland and the Republic, but its portrayal is criticized for being overly simplistic and historically inaccurate, particularly regarding the involvement of far-right groups from Dublin. While the acting remains strong, the narrative's focus on police station closures fails to generate sufficient tension for a compelling drama.
Good police work is all about timing, but with the spectre of the Drumcree Orange Parade marching out of history and back on to the front pages, it's arguable that detective drama Blue Lights ( BBC One, Tuesday) has picked precisely the wrong moment to return.
With the shadow of the past creeping down Garvaghy Road, who wants to spend 60 minutes cosying up to a grim tale of sectarian strife in modern Belfast ? But for those who can bear it, Blue Lights' flaws go beyond reappearing at an awkward hour for its fourth season.
Blue Lights Far Right Depiction Feels Cartoonish
The series tackles the rise of the far right in the north and south of the Border but in a way that, for anyone watching from the Republic, will feel cartoonish. There are unfortunate echoes of British television's historical tendency to portray Irish people as uncouth bruisers always up for a bit of fisticuffs. Its depiction of the cancer of extremism is rendered with a lack of seriousness unimaginable if the setting were London, Manchester or Glasgow.
Twenty minutes in and already the action has descended into a ding-dong mass brawl involving racist Irishmen of all creeds, while the PSNI watch on in benign neutrality. The show throws in some weird details: we're told a march by extremists waving the Union flag is about to be waylaid by new arrivals who have rushed up from the Republic and are waving "Irish tricolours" - as opposed to what other kind?
- and that they are a racist group from "west Dublin ". It's a bizarrely specific call - what has west Dublin done to deserve being heralded as an anti-migrant hotbed on British television? Or did they just confuse it with Citywest and last year's riots? Things get even sillier.
Braveheart Scene Lifted From British TV Drama
We see the two sides, flaunting tricolours and Union flags, marching towards one another and then meet and embrace. The sequence is a direct lift from Braveheart where the Irish and Scottish charge one another and then - yay - turn around and attack the English. It grabs the attention, sure.
But there surely has to be a better way to chronicle the emergence of the far right in Ireland than ripping off an intentionally comedic scene from a 31-year-old costumed epic? It isn't the first time Blue Lights stumbled when casting its gaze south of the Border. In previous seasons, its depictions of Dublin gangsters made the front page of the Sunday World look like a masterclass in subtlety.
Now come loads of racist Dubliners - sorry, "west Dubliners" - charging north to join an anti-immigrant riot by loyalists, whom they embrace as brothers. Weirdly, no English racists are helping to stir it up, despite the visible and persistent presence of British "citizen" journalists at anti-migrant flashpoints across the island in recent years. Alliances of convenience have, of course, been struck up between racists from Ireland north and south.
Blackthorn Station Mothballed And Cast Excellence Shines
But here it's made to look like Father Ted: The Fascist Years and is a reminder of how things can go amiss when we allow others to tell our stories for us, as the BBC has done repeatedly - see also its fatuous Magdalene laundries drama, The Woman in the Wall. Blue Lights is on steadier ground when it retreats into being just another gritty BBC soap with a police backdrop.
Uncertainty hangs over Blackthorn station, which is set to be mothballed to save costs. The cast - headed by Siân Brooke, playing a level-headed Englishwoman perpetually baffled by the North and its alien ways - are uniformly excellent.
However, the series continues to miss Richard Dormer, whose character, Gerry, was bumped off in the first season - though we are promised that he will appear in extensive flashbacks this year as his murder trial finally comes around. You've got to wonder if Blue Lights itself hasn't entered the life-support stage.
Its portrayal of the rise of racism in Ireland is, as I've said, cartoonish - and a contrived story about the station being on the chopping block due to budget cuts isn't enough to sustain any tension. Time, perhaps, to fade to grey.
Blue Lights BBC One Far-Right Northern Ireland Republic Of Ireland Racism Police Drama
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