ITV is starting 2022 with a bang quite literally with its primetime Sunday night drama Trigger Point. The show has been produced by Line of Duty and Bodyguard’s Jed Mercurio with audiences in for a heart-stopped drama. Trigger Point is led by an all-star cast including Vicky McClure and Adrian Lester. Here’s a closer look at the new show.
How many episodes are in Trigger Point on ITV?
Trigger Point follows a bomb disposal team known as EXPO who face death everyday in while keeping the public safe.
Written by Daniel Brierley promises a taut drama as Lana Washington (played by McClure) and partner Joel Nutkins (Lester) are called onto a Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism operation.
There are six episodes in total with a running time of 60 minutes with instalments airing weekly.
Each episode will be available on the ITV Hub following broadcast on catch up or you can watch the show live via the streaming service.
Trigger Point marks writer Brierley’s debut project and he said the idea for the show came to him while watching the 1970s BBC documentary The Long Walk about the bomb disposal operatives in Northern Ireland.
He said he was inspired by the “incredible” documentary, explaining: “I’ve always been fascinated by the mindset of people approaching danger, the people who run towards the problem rather than run away from it, because that’s counter to all our human instincts.
“If I saw something dangerous in the street, I would turn and walk in the other direction, so these operatives were training themselves to suppress something really natural.
“I thought that was a really fascinating jumping off point for a drama and I wanted to get inside their mindset.”
The character of Lana is at the heart of the story and has been described as “real, vibrant and complicated”.
Brierley said Lana and Joel were a “double act” who couldn’t be one without the other.
The pair were in Afghanistan together and so had a unique bond being in the line of danger on a daily basis.
The screenwriter explained: “He’s the only one who sees all the sides of her – she never has to pretend around him and he gets her. They have this symbiotic relationship and they both complete the other.”
He added: “So I couldn’t have Lana, who is raw, vulnerable and wears her heart on her sleeve, without having a character like Joel who is the opposite.”
Brierley said he worked with a real-life bomb disposal unit and visited their secret base in London, spending a lot of time with the people there and learning about the technical details.
He said: “I didn’t go out on any active ops because the insurance would have been crazy, but I’ve seen them training and the surprising thing for me was that the prospect of a bomb was so banal to them because they’ve been training their entire life for this.
“And it’s juxtaposed with the extreme boredom of sitting and waiting – these guys aren’t called out of their office unless there is extreme danger.
“It was really challenging to write a script with so many technicalities in it, because it’s not my world, but I wanted to be honest about what they do and our expos really chipped in and helped me out, draft after draft.
“That meant I could really just let my imagination flow and then come back to the experts and ask if certain things could really happen.”
Trigger Point starts on ITV tonight at 9pm