Entertainment

The BBC's Perfect 'The Rookie' Replacement Officially Sets U.S. Return

Nairavoice · Oct 27, 2026 · 5 min read

Lade Omotade is a News and Features Author at Collider, covering everything from casting announcements and streaming trends to behind-the-scenes stories and the cultural impact of today’s biggest film and TV franchises. Since joining the team in 2024, she has written more than 1,000 news stories, with her work also cited by outlets like AOL and IMDb.

After eight seasons and 144 episodes — and counting — The Rookie remains one of the top-rated cop shows in the U.S. and is now ABC’s third-longest-running series currently on air. In April 2026, it was renewed for a ninth season, set to premiere next January and pick up right where the Season 8 finale left off, with Tim (Eric Winter) and Lucy’s (Melissa O’Neil) abduction. With a few months to go before the show returns, now is the perfect time to catch this similarly intriguing cop show, featuring high-stakes scenarios that are a little more grounded.

Created and written by Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson, Blue Lights premiered on BBC One on March 27, 2023, to critical acclaim, prompting an early renewal for Season 2. Season 2 premiered on April 15, 2024, and Season 3 followed on September 29, 2025. Season 4, on the other hand, arrived last month, but only in the U.K., where it is now on its fifth episode, meaning U.S. fans have plenty of catching up to do. Fortunately, the Season 4 U.S. premiere date on BritBox has been confirmed for November 12, 2026, exactly two weeks from now.

A great detective is really just a personality with a method attached,
which is why we keep remaking the same four of them. Here is yours, what it says about you, and the
case for them being the best in the business.

You let people think you are not a threat and then you simply
never go away. Columbo is the only major detective show that tells you who did it in the
first ten minutes, because the pleasure was never the puzzle, it was watching a rich man
slowly realise he is in trouble.

You are underestimated constantly, and you have stopped minding because it keeps
working.
The show invented the inverted detective format for television and nobody has bettered
it since.
Peter Falk won four Emmys for the part and played him across five decades.
Your flaw is that one more question is rarely one more question.

You are the most interesting person in the room and you know
exactly how to use it. Rian Johnson built Blanc as a gentleman detective who is also an
outsider everywhere he goes, which lets him be charming at people who would never otherwise
talk to him.

You read a room in seconds and you are not above performing a little to speed things up.
Rian Johnson was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Knives Out in
2020.
Wake Up Dead Man arrived on Netflix in December, making three Blanc films in six years.
Your risk is enjoying the performance so much that people stop taking the point
seriously.

Everybody tells you everything, and you have never once asked
them to. Jessica Fletcher is a crime novelist from a small town in Maine who is so warm and
so obviously trustworthy that suspects confess to her essentially as a social courtesy.

You are the person friends call first, and you have a frankly alarming amount of
information about everybody.
Angela Lansbury was nominated for the Emmy twelve times for this role and never won
once.
The show ran twelve seasons, and Jamie Lee Curtis is now bringing the character back.
Your flaw is that being told everything is only a gift if you know what to do with it.

You expect to be lied to and you are almost never disappointed.
Chandler wrote Marlowe as a man with a rigid private code in a city that has none, which is
why he takes the case, solves it, gets nothing out of it and takes the next one.

You are the most cynical person your friends know and the one they would call at four in
the morning.
Bogart played him in The Big Sleep in 1946 and the plot is famously impossible to
follow, which matters not at all.
Elliott Gould, Robert Mitchum and Liam Neeson have all taken the part, and every version
says something about its decade.
Your weakness is a code so strict that it mostly punishes the person holding it.

‘Blue Lights’ Is Perfect for Fans of ‘The Rookie’

Image via BBC
Image via BBC
Image via BBC
Image via BBC

Image via BBC

Like The Rookie, which followed John (Nathan Fillion), Lucy, and Jackson (Titus Makin Jr.) as fresh recruits in Season 1, Blue Lights Season 1 centered on three probationary officers, Grace, Tommy, and Annie, with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). These rookies were paired with experienced officers who train, mentor, and work alongside them. And rather than focusing solely on detective work or legal trials, both police procedurals highlight frontline officers responding to unpredictable calls every day.

Blue Lights Season 2 follows the same trio a year later, while Season 3 finds them two years into the job and accustomed to life under the “blue lights.” As for Season 4, the cops are three years in, facing threats on the streets that the police can barely control. Meanwhile, Gerry Cliff’s murder trial brings a dangerous, long-buried secret to light, sparking chaos within the police force and across the criminal underworld. As Grace, Tommy and Annie grapple with big decisions about their futures, they must find the courage to face the greatest threat they’ve ever encountered: the truth. The British detective drama stars Siân Brooke, Katherine Devlin, Nathan Braniff, Martin McCann, and Richard Dormer.

Blue Lights Season 4 premieres on BritBox next month. Stay tuned to Collider for more information.