麻豆约拍

No one was more surprised than me by the success of the first series of . After a of what might be called cult hits 鈥� and one or two misses 鈥� it was extraordinary to be part of a programme that was 鈥檚 highest performing drama series in a decade. I was reminded of the final scene of the early 70s political satire . Robert Redford plays the outsider in a Senate election. He conducts an eccentric campaign on the assumption he鈥檚 doomed to lose, but his candour wins over voters and he triumphs. As his team celebrate, he pulls his campaign manager aside and asks, in bemusement, 鈥淲hat do we do now?鈥�

The development process on the second series of Line of Duty began as soon as the recommission was confirmed in August 2012. Shooting of six new episodes was scheduled to begin in April 2013. Storylining meetings involved my pitching ideas at World Productions to Simon Heath, Executive Producer, and Priscilla Parish, Script Editor, after which we conferred with Stephen Wright, Head of Drama at 麻豆约拍 Northern Ireland, and Ben Stephenson, Controller of Drama at the 麻豆约拍.

Line of Duty had originally been conceived as a returnable drama, with the premise being that the fictional anticorruption unit AC-12 would move on to a new case in each series, centred on a high-profile antagonist accused of corruption. The character of would be a contrast to from Series 1, and we would also depart from the open mystery whereby the audience witnessed Gates鈥� secrets and dilemma while AC-12 played catch-up. Denton hides her secrets from both the audience and AC-12, making Series 2 more of a whodunit (and whydunit). It was also very important for the long-term development of the returning characters that we portrayed more of their personal lives.

I was grateful that the 麻豆约拍 and World Productions agreed that I could write the whole series, which meant it was possible to employ the same process as before. I would write episode by episode and would try to avoid revealing too much about how the later story develops. This approach allows the series to be constructed along the model of how the audience will watch it. I was concerned that too rigid an adherence to defined plot points in later episodes would restrict the dramatic potential of the preceding ones.

In general, I delivered a two-page outline of the episode, Simon, Priscilla and I would discuss improvements, and then I鈥檇 write the episode. Sometimes I found it necessary to depart from the outline, if things didn鈥檛 work, or they seemed too dull on the page. Once an episode was in good shape, usually after a couple of drafts, I鈥檇 move on to the next. As we neared production, the drafting process got more intense, with input from all departments, the cast and the directors. Episode 6 went through about 10 drafts!

Line of Duty returns to 麻豆约拍 Two on Wednesday 12 February 2014 -