If there’s one thing the British viewing public love, it’s a solid crime drama, and Line of Duty delivers in spades. The critics have been really impressed the Line of Duty’s series 2 opener, calling it an exciting return to form.

Line of DutySerious business: Line of Duty

The procedural cop drama, which, unusually for its genre, is part improvised, blurs the lines between good and bad, often pointing the finger at law enforcement bodies. In that sense, it’s truly original, but it still adheres to the tropes of the crime drama, with brooding tension and plot twists along the way. But don’t take our word for her, here are what the critics had to say.

“There's been a hole in my life since the end of The Bridge. A Bridge-shaped hole,” wrote The Guardian’s Sam Wollaston, referencing the popular Scandinavian drama. “What is there to lie awake worrying over at night? Well, my own petty problems and sorry existence obviously, but that's too depressing. Good timing then for the return of Line of Duty (BBC2), Jed Mercurio's stomach-crampingly tense cop drama.”

"The return of BBC Two's crime drama Line of Duty did what it intended to do and pinned us to our seats with excitement, says Serena Davies, writing for The Telegraph, although her review was filled with spoilers, so we won’t go into too much detail there, for the benefit of those you haven’t seen it.

"Without the brilliant and charismatic Lennie James at centre stage, was Line of Duty series two merely going to be trading off the first series' name and end up looking like a pale imitation?” asked Digital Spy’s Alex Fletcher. “Any concerns about that were quickly extinguished in an opening episode that was brimming with tension, knocked you around the head with twists and kicked you up the bum for good measure for ever doubting it.”

Line of Duty coffinsLine of... coffins

And finally, Den of Geek were also impressed, with Louisa Mellor writing: “There are more characters, more corpses, more cases, and, if you can believe it, even more skittering suspicion. In the course of the first episode, I’d switched my position on new lead DI Lindsay Denton (Keeley Hawes) more times than a railway point at rush-hour.”