Blue Lights
BritBox | Release Date: March 27, 2023
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
82
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 18 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The TelegraphAnita Singh Sep 29, 2025
Season 3 Review: I’m happy to tell you that the quality remains sky-high for series three. .... The first episode is a scene-setter, and it gets better with every instalment. Read full review
100
iRachael SigeeApr 15, 2024
Season 2 Review: The big socio-political themes are there, but never at the expense of the storytelling. If there is anything close to a successor to Happy Valley, it is surely this. It would be a disservice to say that Blue Lights is one of the best police dramas on television. It’s one of the best dramas full stop. Read full review
100
The TelegraphBenji WilsonApr 15, 2024
Season 2 Review: One that skips effortlessly from comedy to breakneck drama, profundity to arguments about cake. When you have writers and a cast who can sustain that tension, you have must-see TV, both effective and affecting. Read full review
100
The TelegraphAnita Singh Jan 4, 2024
Season 1 Review: By the end, you will have a real fondness for these characters. Blue Lights won’t receive a fraction of the hype of Line of Duty, but there isn’t a duff line or an overcooked scene to be found here. The various storylines knit together into one satisfying conclusion. Read full review
100
The GuardianRebecca NicholsonJan 4, 2024
Season 1 Review: It leaves so many tantalising threads just waiting to unravel. What’s real, and what is a setup? What counts as courage, and what is plain stupidity? By the end of the first episode, I’m engrossed. Read full review
82
What's Alan Watching?Alan SepinwallNov 21, 2025
Season 3 Review: Blue Lights definitely wants to be the Belfast equivalent of The Wire. It never quite gets there, but there's also no shame in not living up to one of the greatest TV dramas ever made. At the end of the first season, two of the peelers are offered opportunities to move out of response to more esteemed divisions of the PSNI. Both decline, deciding they can do the most good exactly where they are. When Blue Lights focuses on the simple triumphs and tragedies of what Grace and the others do every day, it's terrific in its own right. Read full review
80
iGerard GilbertSep 29, 2025
Season 3 Review: Blue Lights might settle into being just another standard police procedural. In the meantime, however, it remains the best cop show on British TV. Read full review
80
The TimesCarol MidgleySep 29, 2025
Season 3 Review: Yes, it starts slowly, but this long-form storytelling is always worth the investment. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Barbara EllenSep 10, 2024
Season 2 Review: While inevitably this second outing doesn’t feel quite so unexpected, Blue Lights continues to be big, brutal and vivid. Read full review
80
The TimesCarol MidgleyMay 20, 2024
Season 2 Review: We also see the force being stretched to breaking point: fewer coppers on the ground, having to double as mental-health experts. The story is still warming up, but this is dense, rich soil, and these are the perfect writers to till it. Read full review
80
Radio TimesJames HibbsApr 15, 2024
Season 2 Review: In choosing to focus on more character-led stories this time around, and hints that we'll get to see deeper into the personal lives of the characters, Blue Light season 2 leans into its strengths and is all the more watchable for it. Read full review
80
The GuardianJack SealeApr 15, 2024
Season 2 Review: By the time the credits roll, though, any Grace/Stevie shippers have been smacked around the head by a wisely observed reality check about what the pair’s relationship is really based on. In hard times, Blue Lights continues to skip deftly between light and dark. Read full review
80
Radio TimesJames HibbsJan 4, 2024
Season 1 Review: This is a thoughtful, authentic and emotionally resonant new drama which justifies its existence straight out of the gate, despite my initial personal misgivings. It's just a shame about that title. Read full review
80
The TimesCarol MidgleyJan 4, 2024
Season 1 Review: This is a complicated, cleverly observed, funny and (at times) horrific drama that is a cut above your average police procedural. Adam Patterson and Declan Lawn's six-parter has a fresh, irreverent quality. Read full review
80
iEd PowerJan 4, 2024
Season 1 Review: Sincerity and earnestness are potent storytelling tools when deployed correctly, and those qualities were front and centre here. At a time when every police show feels like an action movie on a shoestring, Blue Lights managed to stand out from the crowd. Read full review
60
The GuardianJack SealeSep 29, 2025
Season 3 Review: We still love it, but in a way that’s safe and familiar. The affair might soon be over. Read full review
60
The IndependentNick HiltonApr 15, 2024
Season 2 Review: If the show lacks the narrative thrust to attract new viewers, it will undoubtedly satisfy those who were already invested in Grace, Annie, and Tommy’s progression through the ranks of the constabulary. But in a genre begging for fresh ideas, you have to try a little harder to stand out. Read full review
60
The IndependentSean O'GradyJan 4, 2024
Season 1 Review: The main weakness in all of this is that the police trainees are so useless that you don’t actually want them to succeed. .... What the writers, Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson, do get very right is the sense of sheer exhausting frustration of policing a place where the usual challenges are overlaid with ethnic-national hatreds and the ever-present possibility of assassination. Read full review
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