Line of Duty season 7, the actual final season, is reportedly coming in 2023 (2024)

In the least shocking news of the year, it has been reported that Line of Duty will return for a 3-episode season in 2023, despite wrapping up most of its mysteries in last year's outing. Every single member of the cast – as well as creator Jed Mercurio – has been threatening a return for AC-12 in interviews since the season six finale, so it makes a lot of sense. A source told, The Sun, that the gang will be back together next year to settle some “unfinished business”.

Last year, Line of Duty ended with a massive and seemingly definitive clang. The big villainous mastermind, the Chief Executive of Bent Copper Activities, teased for years under the codename ‘H’, was revealed to be the bumbling, hapless DCI Ian Buckells. The reveal was disappointing, partly in how it was done – a soap-operatic camera dodging Buckells' face for what felt like minutes while he entered the interrogation room – and left viewers wanting more. But with Hastings quite reasonably forced into retirement and AC-12 seemingly disbanded, it really did feel like The End.

But given Line of Duty's status as one of the BBC's most popular shows of all time, and our inability to just let things die, talk immediately rumbled on about future seasons, with no one from the show's team quite able to shut down the possibility. And now, over a year on, the wheels are finally turning on an actual seventh outing for our beloved bent-copper-sniffer-outers with multiple members of the cast giving their two cents on how a new series could shape up.

We know that Mercurio, Adrian Dunbar, Martin Compston, Vicky McClure and Line of Duty producer Simon Heath got together for dinner not long ago, where they likely discussed the show's next moves. We also know that the BBC were never gonna just let this show end, given its wild fanbase, if the cast and crew did indeed want to get back in the saddle.