Line of Duty is to return to our screens on Sunday 31 March, the BBC has confirmed.
The popular police drama is coming back for a fifth season and will air on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
The hotly anticipated new series was officially confirmed in a tweet from the BBC's flagship channel that read: "The fans have already called it. Confirming for the record, #LineOfDuty Series 5 starts on Sunday 31st March on BBC One and BBC iPlayer."
The drama stars Martin Compston, Vicky McClure and Aidan Dunbar, and this season will see This Is England and Boardwalk Empire star Steven Graham join an already stellar cast.
Alongside those guys, Maneet Bindra, Polly Walker, Andrea Irvine and Aiysha Hart are also down to return for the latest instalment.
This series is going to be slightly different to the others, in that the format is changing. Whereas they've previously focused on one rogue corrupt police officer, this time our heroes' AC-12 unit have a many-headed beast to slay.
Recently, the creator of the show, Jed Mercutio, told Pilot TV magazine that they are hunting down an 'organised crime group' this time around.
He told the publication: "That is the fresh ground that we break in the series.
"That we've had these shadowy figures, 'the Balaclava Men', who are part of an organised crime group and have featured on and off all through the previous four seasons. But we've never really gone behind the mask and identified them as proper characters and found out about them.
"That was something that we felt was overdue and so in this season, rather than the customary approach, which is we present a police officer who is involved in a case, and that for whatever reasons there are allegations of corruption which AC-12 investigate, we are looking at this organised crime group who clearly, it's been established in the past, function to a certain extent through relationships with corrupt police officers."
He continued: "So, rather than looking at the corrupt police offers this time, we're looking at the other side of the coin, which is the [organised crime group]."
There you have it.
So, when we last saw Line of Duty, we were left with a thrilling cliffhanger. Audiences were left reeling when those aforementioned 'balaclava men' were revealed to be several people. Nobody really knows what the hell is going on, basically.
We've seen a trailer already, but all that taught us is that Detective Arnott (played by Compston) has grown a beard. We need more than that.
On 31 March, we'll finally get some answers.
Featured Image Credit: BBC OneTopics: TV and Film, BBC, UK Entertainment
