LET'S BE CAREFUL OUT THERE (BLUE LIGHTS, SERIES ONE)

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Once the first episode of 'Blue Lights' aired on BBC1, a second series for Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson's Belfast cop show should never have been in doubt.

After all, if the BBC could option a second series for its ropey Northern Ireland post-Troubles drama 'Bloodlands' and its police soap 'Hope Street,' it would have been a travesty to deny 'Blue Lights' another outing.

And so it has come to pass, with a second series being commissioned before the penultimate episode of 'Blue Lights' even aired. 

Few TV dramas from Northern Ireland, though, have generated the buzz that Patterson and Lawn's show has on both sides of the Irish Sea.

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And deservedly so, as it was evident from the first episode that 'Blue Lights' was in another league to other Northern Ireland TV dramas.

In fact, it's several leagues above them.

Set in the fictional Blackthorn Police Station, 'Blue Lights' follows the adventures of three rookie officers, the Police Service of Northern Ireland colleagues tasked with blooding them in and a crime gang operating under the flag of convenience of a dissident republican paramilitary group.

The programme follows a well trodden path forged by other "officers on the beat" shows like 'Hill Street Blues,' Manchester's 'The Cops,' Los Angeles' 'The Shield,' Liverpool's 'The Responder' and Yorkshire's 'Happy Valley'.

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However it isn't an exact replica, giving the procedural a fresh, contemporary Northern Irish twist.

Lawn and Patterson are former current affairs journalists who worked on BBC Northern Ireland's investigative reporting show 'Spotlight' and BBC1's 'Panorama'.

Their research has been thorough, talking to up to 30 serving and retired police officers during its gestation.

And it really shows because 'Blue Lights' oozes an authenticity that only the best cop dramas have.

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Inspired by the work of David Simon and his epic Baltimore cop dramas 'Homicide: Life On The Street and' 'The Wire', they ground 'Blue Lights' in the realities of 21st Century Belfast.

While audiences will spot similarities to other police shows and other cities, Patterson, Lawn and their co-writer Fran Harris do an excellent job shining a light on the unique challenges of policing in Northern Ireland.

This means 'Blue Lights' confronts the challenge of encouraging men and women from a Catholic, nationalist background to join the PSNI in significantly greater numbers than its predecessor during the Troubles, the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

It also means officers looking over their shoulders and under their cars for potential attempts by hardline republicans to kill them.

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The six part drama shows how officers often have to balance the need to tackle serious crime against the desire of British military intelligence to be allowed to infiltrate dissident republican organisations and mount covert operations against them.

Finally, Lawn and Patterson do all of this while showing the day to day struggles of officers trying to get on top of anti social behaviour, domestic violence, petty crime, drug overdoses, handling vulnerable people and also the stocious.

Providing a route into this world are three probationers.

Sian Brooke's 41 year old from the English Midlands, PC Grace Ellis is a former social worker determined to make a difference on the streets. 

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The mother of a mixed race teenage son, Matt Carver's Cal, she has lived in Belfast for ten years but is still treated like "a blow in".

Martin McCann's food obsessed PC Stevie Nichol, who dreams of joining the Close Protection Unit, is her guide and the two quickly establish a solid friendship.

Katherine Devlin's rookie PC Annie Conlon is an officer from a nationalist background who hails from the rural Glens of Antrim, north of Belfast.

She likes to drink when off duty and plays camogie but she is forced to move to Belfast after a credible dissident republican threat is made against her.

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Annie has a particularly prickly relationship with Hannah McClean's PC Jen Robinson, an officer who would rather prep files for court than get her hands dirty on the streets of the city.

The daughter of Andrea Irvine's senior officer Superintendent Nicola Robinson, there's an air of entitlement and arrogance about her but the reasons for Jen's unwillingness to police the streets soon becomes apparent.

The third rookie, Nathan Braniff's earnest PC Tommy Foster is a middle class boy on a fast track scheme who thinks you have to play everything by the book.

Tommy is worried that he might fail his probationary period because of his poor marksmanship scores.

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In fact all three rookies are told in the first episode by Joanne Crawford's no nonsense police sergeant Helen McNally that they will need to buck up their ideas or they will not make it through.

Lucky for Tommy, though, he has Richard Dormer's old hand PC Gerry Cliff to be his guide.

Gerry loves country music and can also be a wee bit bolshie about authority.

His gift of the gab and his big heart is a winning trait that endears him to his fellow officers and some of the people he encounters on the streets.

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The main focus of the officers of Blackthorn Police Station is the McIntyre gang - dissident republicans living in the Carrick View estate who are led by John Lynch's veteran James McIntyre.

James' son, Michael Shea's Mo is a cocky lad, doing side deals with a Dublin crime gang led by Peter Campion's Eoin O'Sullivan who supplies their drugs.

The Ginley gang are looking for weapons and Mo strikes a deal to give them Libyan rifles hidden during IRA decommissioning in exchange for wads of cash.

Gerard Jordan's muscular Anto Donovan is the main enforcer of the McIntyre gang, carrying out a so-called "paramilitary style attack" (a kneecapping to be precise) on Isaac Heslip's electric scooter riding drug dealer JP in one episode because he was making money on the side.

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In the first episode, we are introduced to another Mo sidekick, Dane Whyte O'Hara's Gordy Mackle who Stevie and Grace arrest after a vehicle pursuit in the Belfast hills.

The chase culminates in him crashing into a hedgerow and overturning his car in a field.

However Gordy walks free after it emerges the vehicle belongs to James McIntyre who insists it was not stolen.

Grace tries to reach out to Gordy's mum, Valene Kane's Angela who is clearly agitated by the influence James is exerting over his son.

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However it isn't easy as Angela is initially wary of the police.

The involvement of Gordy with the McIntyres makes him a person of interest to the officers of Blackthorn Police Station.

But unfortunately that also makes him a person of interest to British agents (or "the sneaky beakies," as Gerry likes to call them).

Nabil Elouahabi's shadowy MI5 figure Joseph surfaces at key points of the show to warn the Blackthorn officers' boss Jonathan Harden's Inspector David 'Jonty' Johnson that the McIntyre gang, all known associates and huge swathes of the Carrick View estate are off limits.

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Arresting those individuals for any reason could seriously risk undermining a covert operation by his agents and a valuable intelligence asset within the dissident organisation.

But while Jonty meekly complies, telling his officers huge parts of Carrick View and the gang are out of bounds, Gerry, in particular, is not willing to be bossed around by spooks.

Over the course of the six episodes, Lawn, Patterson and their fellow writer Fran Harris chronicle the day to day challenges Blackthorn's officers face.

Episode one sees Grace de-escalate a potentially violent confrontation on the Carrick View estate with a distraught, knife wielding Angela.

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The next episode sees the officers of Blackthorn responding to a series of drug overdoses across the city as a result of a dodgy drugs consignment.

We see the grim reality of police dealing with the aftermath of a kneecapping in the third episode, with Packy Lee and Mary Moulds doing an impressive job as the victim JP's distraught parents.

An episode entitled 'Full Moon Fever' depicts the officers dealing with a mad night shift with not enough resources at their disposal - responding to reports of a blaring TV in a house, a groping in a city centre bar, a drink driving offence and an incident of domestic violence.

This gives audiences another insight into a reality of policing in Northern Ireland as Aoibheann McCann's Police Ombudsman investigator pores over the details of the night shift with Sergeant McNally.

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The writers do that thing all good cop shows do by shining a light on the vulnerable people on the margins of society who are suffering the ravages of trauma and addiction and who occasionally brush up against the law.

In 'Blue Lights' case, that role is performed by Paddy Jenkins who portrays a sweet natured, old friend of Gerry's nicknamed Happy whose life was derailed by a terrible childhood trauma.

While capturing the challenges PSNI officers face, Patterson, Lawn and Harris do a superb job with director Gilles Bannier building the tension between the police and British intelligence agents over the McIntyre gang.

The careful construction of this storyline really pays dividends in the final two episodes as events take a shocking turn.

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The director coaxes terrific performances out of his cast.

Brooke seizes her chance to shine in a lead part as Grace who emerges as a good hearted rookie willing to take big risks for the right cause, only to realise those risks don't always pay off.

McCann is a good foil for her, bringing a nice mix of cheekiness, pragmatism and a touch of enigma to the role of Stevie.

Devlin and Braniff are great value as Grace's fellow rookies, giving audiences more than one iron in the fire.

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Faced with the least envied part, McClean emerges as one of the show's strongest cards as Jen Robinson - particularly in the latter half of the run.

Crawford is a strong, grounded presence as Sergeant Helen McNally - although you really hope in future series she gets to cut loose.

Harden makes a decent show of playing the officers' shifty boss, while Elouhabi is suitably shady as the chief spook.

Throughout the series Lynch also cuts an intriguing figure as the head of the McIntyre gang and is complemented by Abigail McGibbon's turn as his tough as nails ex-wife Tina.

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Shea and O'Hara bring the requisite swagger as the younger members of the gang, while Jordan comfortably fits into the role of the gang's enforcer.

Campion injects the right amount of cockiness into the part of Eoin O'Sullivan from the Dublin based Ginley gang and avoids him becoming cartoonish.

Kane confirms why she is one of Northern Ireland's smartest screen actors with a twitchy performance as Angela that is so good in the first episode, you kind of wish you saw more of her.

However the standout performance belongs to Richard Dormer who brings grit, heart, rebelliousness and a huge dose of street humour to the role of Gerry.

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Not only does he generously help Braniff to shine but he gels really well with Andi Osho who plays his wife and the station's desk sergeant Sandra Cliff.

Dormer's work in the fifth episode is particularly outstanding, changing audience perceptions of another character in the show.

In fact, his performance is so good I'd watch a spin-off about Gerry's time in CID before he ended up at Blackthorn.

As 'Blue Lights' progresses, Harris, Patterson and Lawn show a willingness to take big risks with the narrative.

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And while some in Northern Ireland, where someone is always looking to be slighted, have moaned about the fact that there are no Ulster loyalist characters, there's plenty of time for that if that's where Lawn and Patterson want to take the show.

As Northern Ireland TV dramas go, 'Blue Lights' is a significant leap forward which could really help audiences outside the region gain an understanding of the place.

However Lawn, Patterson and Harris' greatest achievement is creating a police procedural that has the potential to be up there with the very best on either side of the Atlantic.

How they go about achieving that in future series is genuinely exciting.

If they continue to be daring in pursuit of that goal, as they are in Episode Five, then even better.

(Series one of 'Blue Lights' was broadcast on BBC1 from March 27-May 1, 2023 and is available on the BBC iPlayer)