David Farnor | On 22, Feb 2021

Cobra’s Marsha Thomason will take the lead in The Bay, with ITV renewing the drama for a third season.

The Morecambe-based crime drama, written by award-winning writer and playwright Daragh Carville (Being Human, The Smoke, Cherrybomb), has previously starred Morven Christie as Lisa Armstrong. In Season 1, the detective made a questionable decision to get involved in a case, while Season 2 saw her forced to do menial police work while waiting to get back on the front line and proving her worth to colleagues, family and herself.

Season 2 averaged more than 7.5m viewers across all transmissions and devices while airing over the past month, with Season 1 and 2 racking up a massive 19.8m programme streams on ITV Hub since 18th December, when The Bay Series 1 dropped on ITV Hub, with 19.2m of these coming in 2021.

Following Christie’s decision to leave the show, Season 3 will see Marsha Thomason (Cobra, White Collar) join the regular cast as Morecambe CID’s new Family Liaison Officer, DS Jenn Townsend.

DS Townsend 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. While she’s eager to give the family answers, she also needs to prove herself as the team’s newest recruit. The pressure is multiplied when her new blended family struggle to settle in Morecambe, proving to Jenn that a fresh start might not be as simple as moving to a different town.

Reprising their roles are Daniel Ryan (Innocent, Home Fires), Erin Shanagher (Viewpoint, Peaky Blinders), Thomas Law (The Worlds End, A Cinderella Story) and Andrew Dowbiggin (Cobra, Coronation Street). Furquan Akhtar will co-write the new season, which will begin filming this spring.

ITV’s Head of Drama, Polly Hill, said: “We are delighted with the audiences’ response to The Bay and look forward to them meeting DS Jenn Townsend played by the fantastic Marsha Thomason, who joins the team in series 3.”

Executive Producer, Catherine Oldfield, added: “Daragh and I couldn’t be more delighted by the audience response to The Bay. That ITV have recommissioned the show is fantastic and to get a talent as bright and brilliant as Marsha to lead the new series is beyond exciting. We can’t wait to get back to Morecambe to start filming again in that beautiful part of the world.”

 

ITV orders second season of The Bay

4th May 2019

There’s good news for crime drama fans this week, following the gripping finale of The Bay: the series will return to ITV for a second season.

ITV and producers Tall Story Pictures have commissioned a second run of the Morecambe-based drama, written by award-winning writer and playwright Daragh Carville (Being Human, The Smoke, Cherrybomb). The Bay achieved consolidated audiences of 7 million viewers with a share of 27% across six episodes.  Set in the coastal town of Morecambe, The Bay stars Morven Christie (The A Word, The Replacement) as police Family Liaison Officer DS Lisa Armstrong and Daniel Ryan (Mount Pleasant, Black Sea) as DI Tony Manning.

“Christie’s performance is so engaging and her subsequent creeping guilt and paranoia so convincing that once you’re past the initial setup, this becomes an absorbing watch,” we wrote in our review of Season 1, available on ITV Hub.

 
The second season was announced by ITV’s Head of Drama, Polly Hill.
 
“I am delighted with the audience response to The Bay.  It’s very real and beautifully made by everyone involved, and as a result it held an audience of 7 million across 6 weeks. I think that audience will enjoy seeing where Daragh takes Lisa and the team, when they return with a new case for series 2 next year,” she said.
 
Executive Producer Catherine Oldfield added: “We are so thrilled that The Bay found such a large audience and that the fantastic world and characters brought to life by Daragh Carville will be returning to ITV. It was an incredible production, shot in a beautiful location and thanks to ITV’s belief in the story we wanted to tell, we get to do it all over again.”
 
The second season will begin filming later this year with further casting news to be announced closer to production.

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