Genre: | Crime drama[1] |
Theme Music Composer: | Samuel Sim |
Opentheme: | The Bay – Samuel Sim (Feat. Storme) |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Language: | English |
Num Series: | 5 |
Num Episodes: | 30 |
Executive Producer: | Catherine Oldfield |
Runtime: | 45 minutes |
Company: | Tall Story Pictures |
Network: | ITV |
Last Aired: | present |
The Bay is a British crime drama television series produced by Tall Story Pictures and distributed worldwide by ITV Studios Global Entertainment that first aired in March 2019 on ITV.[2] The first two series starred Morven Christie as a detective sergeant family liaison officer. Marsha Thomason took over the leading role from series three as DS Jenn Townsend. The first series centred around an investigation into teenage missing twins from a family living in Morecambe. The name of the series derives from Morecambe Bay, in the county of Lancashire in the north-west of England.
The first series received an average of 7.2 million views across the six episodes. A second series of six episodes was confirmed on 4 May 2019 and it was originally planned for it to be broadcast in mid-2020. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was pushed back to early 2021; in January of that year, all six episodes were immediately made available on the ITV Hub, receiving an average of 7.9 million views.
A third series was filmed in the summer 2021.[3] Christie decided to leave the show following production on the second series and Marsha Thomason was cast as the new lead, DS Jenn Townsend.[4] After the last episode of series 3 was broadcast a fourth series was announced, and filming completed June 2022. It was renewed for a fifth series and filming began in July 2023.[5]
Detective Sergeant Lisa Armstrong (Morven Christie) is the mother of two children and working for the fictional West Lancashire Police Service as a Family Liaison Officer (FLO). She is called out on the case of two missing teenagers, only to find the married stepfather of the twins is someone with whom she had sex the night before in an alley behind a pub. Lisa's interaction with Sean (Jonas Armstrong) has been caught on CCTV,[8] [9] but she deletes the footage rather than coming clean and admitting to the one-night stand, complicating the investigation.[10]
Lisa's suspension is over but she has been demoted, whilst Med has been promoted. A solicitor is shot on his doorstep. The team investigates. To complicate Lisa's life further, her ex-husband Andy (Joe Absolom) reappears in Morecambe.
DS Townsend (Marsha Thomason) is immediately thrown into the deep end when a body is found in the bay on her first day in the job. She must get under the skin of a grieving and complicated family if she has any chance of solving the premature death of an aspiring young boxer.
The series has been labelled the "Northern Broadchurch",[1] or the "New Broadchurch" after a similar British crime drama called Broadchurch starring Olivia Colman and David Tennant.[11] [12] The writer of the series, Daragh Carville, is originally from Northern Ireland, but wanted to set something where he now lives.
The series was shot in and around Morecambe, particularly on the beaches and in the Winter Gardens, where writer Daragh Carville stated that the people of Morecambe took quite an interest in the show and were keen to see that they, and their town, were not misrepresented on screen.[13] Other scenes were also shot in Manchester, Whitehaven and Grange-over-Sands.[14]
The Daily Telegraph rated the first and second episodes in the series with three stars out of five, and whilst acknowledging the lead character's portrayal, described the series as "Lancashire's riposte to/total rip-off of Broadchurch".[15] The Independent also awarded it three stars out of five, labelling the series as having texture, but that the characterisation of the conundrum faced by DS Armstrong as being "cold".[16] The Guardian was more positive and gave it four stars out of five stating "Suspects and police officers with shared secrets? Check. Information wilfully withheld by the writer? Check. Will you be hooked? Check."[17]
Katrina Williams, writing in the Glasgow Guardian, highlighted the high standard of production amidst the formulaic setting of the crime drama and noted that "I wasn't desperate for the next episode, but the first episode still managed to strike my interest".[18]
Dominic Maxwell, reviewing for The Times, gave the first episode of the second series four stars out of five, commenting that the episode was "a solid, finely crafted detective thriller" and it "could just be the downbeat yet propulsive distraction we need right now".[19] Rachel Sigee, reviewing for the newspaper i, also gave it four stars praising Christie and suggesting "This engrossing first episode scattered enough clues [...] to set up an intriguing thriller".[20] Anita Singh, reviewing for The Daily Telegraph, rated the first episode three stars out of five calling it "a refreshing return for this bracing seaside cop show",[21] while Sean O'Grady for The Independent was more critical, commenting that "though the actors put in some commendable performances, they are all lumbered with carelessly constructed, barely two-dimensional characters" and gave it two stars.[22]