‘I feel like I’ve moved on’: Blue Lights star Andi Osho on Sandra’s future, an Easter egg fans might’ve missed and why the show gets older women right
Really get behind the scenes of the brilliant police drama as it draws to a close, with insights from one of its biggest stars
Blue Lights is a TV series I could talk about for ever. However, the future of one of the best police procedurals you'll ever see is currently hanging in the balance, meaning conversation about it might end with season 4.
The finale of the show's fourth outing airs on November 3, and I was lucky enough to speak to the brilliant Ando Osho (Sandra Cliff) about where the series could be heading, and what goes on behind the scenes.
While we spoke, Andi shared an Easter egg from season 4 that fans probably missed (and will definitely love,) and shared her thoughts on the beautiful love story between Sandra and Gerry (Richard Dormer) that fans got an unexpected look at this series.
The star also delves what Blue Lights gets right when it comes to portraying older women, and you won't be surprised to hear it doesn't put a foot wrong.
Discussing a potential season 5, the actress is hoping for a renewal but tells me the cast will be "thinking about what their next job will be" regardless of whether the show is greenlit for another series or not.
"The decision is really with the BBC," Andi says of the show's future, adding, "It's not with us at all. It's not with the production company or the writers or anything like that. The decision is whether the BBC do it, and do the BBC want to take it forward."
She continues, "So, you just never know. There's so many moving parts to these decisions that it's hard to say whether it's going to happen, so you just wait and hear and everybody just thinks about what their next job will be."
I ask whether the season 4 wrap party felt final and whether the cast felt like they were saying their last goodbyes, but Andi tells me she didn't attend because she was already on the hunt for new projects.
"I had already completed my filming before then, and I tend not to go back for the wrap parties when when it's been a while - I feel like I've moved on, I'm thinking about what's next," she explains.
Like many fans will be, I was excited to hear about an Easter egg, planted carefully in that beautiful Sandra and Gerry backstory episode. It was one that Andi thinks most fans will have unwittingly skimmed over.
While we discussed the level of detail that had gone into "dressing" Sandra and Gerry's home for the throwback episode, So Far, and Gerry's clear love of vintage and vinyl, Andi revealed that Richard Dormer who plays Gerry, had once worked with Blue Lights' director of photography, Ray Carlin on a film.
Hidden among the decor at Gerry's house was a sweet nod to that previous working relationship. "There was a poster from that film, or from the artist that he was playing in this film," Andi explains.
The poster sits "by the record player" Gerry adores in the episode, with Andi adding, "So that's a like a little Easter egg, but you really have to tie the dots together to be able to work that out."
That episode was my favourite of season 4, mainly because it's so rare to see a midlife love story play out on TV that doesn't come with a tonne of cliches and overused tropes.
Andi agrees, telling me she's never fallen in love on screen before, rightly singing the praises of writers Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson not only for that portrayal of love in later life, but for every way the show gets older women right.
"I think the writers are really good at doing interesting things with older women in particular, you have Sandra falling in love quite late in life - across all TV it's very unusual to see people in their 50s falling in love," she says.
Andi continues, "For me as an actor, this is the first time I've fallen in love [on screen.] It's more like an acting process of delving back into your own personal history," she says as she explains how she drew on past life experiences of being nervous about speaking to somebody she liked, and "feeling the butterflies" of the spark that comes with realising she had feelings for somebody, and bringing these memories to Sandra's story.
"It was a joy to do, but it is still quite rare to see older people, mid-season people falling in love," she says.
As for the other "mid season" women on the show, they get the same treatment. "You've got Helen moving up through the ranks really quickly, you've got Andrea in that really powerful position," she says of the women showing that age and gender aren't affecting anything they do on the series.
The actress refers to Tina McIntyre as "a ballsy, amazing character" and points out that people reading the script who didn't know Tina's name would "assume it would be a man" they were reading about, because so few women like Tina are seen on screen.
"With Blue Lights, what they've done remarkably well across the seasons is have women in interesting, not just powerful, but interesting positions," Andi shares.
With the series possibly not ever returning, our conversation turns to what's next for Andi. As well as wanting to produce her own shows and keep the representation and diversity of women of her age and ethnicity alive on screen, she very much wants to write.
"I'm thinking about writing," she says, adding, "I've written three novels, my third came out this year and my attention is on this window where I can start looking at book number four."
Hoping to build the storyline around menopause, something she's a keen advocate of women getting the care and treatment they deserve for, Andi concludes that she just wants to continue making progress with the things she loves. "I have to remind myself, keep going," she concludes.
All four seasons of Blue Lights are available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
