Almost four years to the day that Line of Duty ended its sixth series on a final(ish) note, comes speculation about the BBC crime thriller’s rumoured return. That means cast members are once again ‘breaking their silence’ to ‘exclusively reveal’ little of substance to outlets including The Sun, (who previously scooped a three-part special that was supposed to have started filming in January 2023, but didn’t, and who are now predicting a six-part series to go into production in early 2026, a rumour on which the BBC and World Productions have yet to comment.)

Set in AC-12, an internal police anti-corruption unit that investigates wrongdoing on the force, Line of Duty ran between 2012 and 2021 on the BBC. Over almost a decade, it wrapped its overarching story of corrupt officers cooperating with organised crime, around the new series’ otherwise standalone case (each led by a one-and-done guest star including Lennie James, Keeley Hawes, Daniel Mays, Thandiwe Newton, Stephen Graham, and Kelly Macdonald).

From series three onwards, Line of Duty verged on a national obsession. Fans delighted in Superintendent Ted Hastings’ Northern Irish idioms, in DI Steve Arnott’s waistcoats, in the show’s indecipherable patter of police acronyms. The Dum…Dum…Dum… cliffhangers drove us wild, and the search to unveil high-ranking bent copper “H” drove us silly. It all culminated in a finale watched by almost 16 million, not all of whom were satisfied by the ending, and some of whom called for the show to return and give it another bash.

That’ll only happen, Steve Arnott actor Martin Compston told The Sun, “for the right reasons.” Those being: “because Jed [Mercurio, creator and writer], thinks there’s a story to tell.”