Actor Adrian Dunbar, who played Superintendent Hastings in six seasons of Jed Mercurio’s smash hit BBC series “Line of Duty,” has speculated about a seventh season.
Dunbar told The Times of London: “There’s a big appetite for more ‘Line of Duty.’ It could be three or four episodes, I don’t think there’s going to be six for some reason. It might be two 90 minutes. But it’s all entirely down to Jed what the storyline is going to be. It’s a big ask for him.”
Season six of the drama, which revolves around an anti-corruption unit in the U.K. police, concluded with a big reveal that evoked mixed reactions from the audience.
“It may not have been dramatically satisfying and I can understand why people went, ‘Oh my God!’ But it was a proper way to conclude, to show that actually some of the biggest stuff that happens is very simply an ordinary cop not passing on information because he’s been asked not to and that’s the one thing that can make a heist work,” Dunbar told The Times.
“Nobody knew what ‘Line of Duty’ was going to be. When you’re writing series two, you might start thinking, ‘This could go to three or four’ — but six?,” Dunbar added. “And it’s very difficult to introduce a new character, a Mr. Big at the end of the sixth season. You realise that it has to be somebody we’ve already seen — it can’t be somebody from absolutely nowhere. So it was a tricky place to be in.”
About what could take place in the next season, Dunbar says: “It’s going to be really good. Maybe someone’s going to die. Someone’s going to be under threat. He doesn’t mind killing characters off. Maybe he’ll kill us all off. A terrible car crash when we’re rushing to the scene of a crime? We’ll have to leave it to him.”
When Variety asked Mercurio about season 7 of “Line of Duty” and a second season of “Bodyguard,” he said: “There are no updates on those.”
Dunbar will next be seen in “Ridley,” where he headlines the series as a retired cop who is drawn into an investigation. “Ridley” debuts on U.K. broadcaster ITV on Aug. 28.