Watch: DCI Banks: Series 3 Trailer [UPDATED with UK and US Premiere Dates]

Hold on to your hats, people. Hit crime drama DCI Banks is coming back, and this time the detective has relationship issues to resolve as well as cases to solve.

Based on renowned crime writer Peter Robinson’s successful Inspector Alan Banks novels, DCI Banks has proved to be a hit on both sides of the pond. On ITV in the UK, it averaged approximately 5 million viewers across the pilot and first two series,and nearly doubled the ratings for its time slot on local public television stations in the US.

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And the third series is on its way, with three stories that are sure to thrill fans of this gripping detective drama.

The first is “Wednesday’s Child,” in which DS Annie Cabbot (Andrea Lowe, Love Life, Monroe) rejoins the team after maternity leave and is immediately thrown onto a strange and sinister child abduction case, in which a man and a woman posing as social workers abscond with a woman’s young son.

While investigating the case, new single mum Annie and divorced dad Alan (Stephen Tompkinson, Truckers, Wild at Heart) must also deal with their feelings for each other. Can they have a romantic relationship that works while working side by side as colleagues? It’s complicated.

And DI Helen Morton (Caroline Catz, Doc Martin, Murder in Suburbia) isn’t helping matters. Still stern, inflexible and socially inept, and still on Banks’ team, the on-the-job tension mounts as she and Cabbot, another strong-willed and capable detective, are at loggerheads with each other and often with Banks. too.

In the second story, “Piece of My Heart,” the body of a journalist in a remote village connects Banks to a death in the 1980s that revolved around the surviving members of a pop band.

The discovery of a loaded gun in a young girl’s bedroom sets off a chain of events in the final story, “Bad Boy,” in which we meet Banks’ daughter. A college dropout with whom he has a good relationship, despite each of them knowing each other less than they let on, she puts herself in grave danger, and he realizes this too late…

DCI Banks will air soon in six hour-long episodes on ITV and three 90-minute episodes on local PBS and independent public television stations.

UPDATE: Series 3 will debut on ITV on Monday, the 3rd of February, at 9 PM local time in the UK, and in the US on local PBS and independent public television stations beginning Monday, the 31st of March. Premiere dates and times vary by station, so check your local listings.

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