ITV has ordered another 13 episodes of Law & Order: UK.

The show, which stars Bradley Walsh, Jamie Bamber, Harriet Walter and Freema Agyeman, is based on the successful American Law & Order format.

The third series of the show premiered last month and attracted guest stars including Rupert Graves, Deborah Findlay and Kevin Doyle.

Juliet Stevenson, Tobias Menzies and Nicola Walker have already signed up to appear in the next series.

ITV’s director of drama Laura Mackie said: “Law & Order: UK is continuing to deliver audiences with its top-flight acting and ‘ripped from the headlines’ storylines that captivate and entertain. With the commissioning of 13 new episodes we are proving ITV’s commitment to a series which has the potential to run and run, much like its US counterpart.”

The fourth series of Law & Order: UK is expected to air in the new year.

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This October, BBC AMERICA brings 26 episodes of the hit show Law & Order: UK home to the U.S. Based on Emmy award-winning producer Dick Wolf’s long-running crime series, Law & Order: UK follows the familiar two part format: beginning each episode with a crime, followed by the legal and court proceedings to convict the criminal. All scripts have been taken from the U.S. version to retain the grittiness of the original series, but adapted to fit with the British legal system, providing a uniquely British twist. Law & Order: UK premieres Sunday, October 3, 10:30p.m. ET/PT with subsequent episodes premiering on Fridays, 9:00p.m. ET/PT.

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Those who fretted it wouldn’t appear should fret not – the new series of Law & Order: UK will soon be showing on STV.

Delayed because of scheduling reasons, the cream of British acting talent are back together for the third series, starting on Wednesday September 22 at 9pm.

A hit with viewers, the programme covers the sort of diverse storylines that were tackled in the original hit US series but all with a distinctly British perspective.

Now the teams are back to solve more perplexing crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice.  Ex-Corrie star is Bradley Walsh is DS Ronnie Brooks, a real East End, copper’s copper, friend and partner to the charming DS Matt Devlin, Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica, Ultimate Force), whose approach to policing is part seduction part force.  Both report to DI Natalie Chandler (Harriet Walter, Broken Lines, Atonement) a working mum who would back them to the hilt.

Meanwhile, the CPS team comprises Ben Daniels (The Passion, Cutting It) as dedicated Senior Crown Prosecutor James Steel, a man on a mission for justice; Freema Agyeman (Dr Who, Torchwood) as hard working, strong-willed young prosecutor Alesha Phillips; and Scots acting star Bill Paterson (Criminal Justice, Sea of Souls) as their respected boss CPS director George Castle, a man trying to balance his ideals with the bigger picture.

The new cases faced by the teams are even more compelling and shocking then those featured in previous series.  They include: a toddler being led to his death, a 16-year old-girl found dead in her home in the middle of the afternoon, a prison officer shot dead on a council estate, a mysterious killer using a bayonet to slay his victims, the stabbing of a student and the murder case of DS Matt Devlin’s best friend.

Guest stars across the new series include: Rupert Graves, Deborah Findlay, Kevin Doyle, Rocky Marshall, Patrick Malahide, Ruth Gemmell, Matthew Marsh, Celyn Jones, Wunmi Mosaku, and Robbie Gee.

• Law & Order: UK appears on STV, starting on Wednesday September 22 at 9pm, and will also be available afterwards on the STV Player.

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Jamie Bamber returns in a new series of the crime drama Law & Order: UK, screening on Thursday, Sept 9 on ITV1 (not STV)…

Is it good to be back playing Matt Devlin again?
“Yes. Mainly, I look forward to working with Bradley Walsh again. He’s a very funny man and a very different kind of actor to me. He’s fantastic in the show. We’re like a double act and it’s the double-act part of the show that’s the appeal of it for me. We’re not quite good-cop-bad-cop, but it’s that sort of chemistry between these guys as they try to get information out of witnesses and suspects. Matt always pre-judges and sees everything in a black-and-white way, while Bradley’s character, Ronnie, is more measured.”

Do we get to know more about Matt’s life away from work?
“We have an episode where you get a window into his past and he has to deal with his failure to be a proper friend to someone from his past. As an actor, the chance to get inside the character with a story like that is a real treat. But that’s not what the show is really about. It’s about the stories, not the characters.

“It’s a format show and the format is about giving people a moral dilemma, a conundrum to solve – and they get to watch the criminal justice system come to terms with dealing with that. It entertains, challenges, stimulates and provokes and each week is a separate story. You don’t need to have watched the previous week to pick it up. It’s a good format.”

Looking through the storylines for this series, the first episode seems to have a lot of echoes of the Jamie Bulger case…
“The similarity is deliberate. The cases we pick are the complex ones, the morally ambiguous ones. The best episodes are the ones that draw on something that people will recognise from the news headlines. Law & Order is all about showing people who mess up other people’s lives, and how we as a society cope with them. Drama is there to examine the society in which we live.”

Do you think it gives viewers a more informed idea about how the police and CPS work?
“Yes and it’s good that it does. As a member of the public, you form your opinions on the police and the Crown Prosecution Service via the headlines – and they are usually negative. The tabloids in particular like to ram down our throats how the CPS has gone soft or how the police are corrupt.”

Your next role is in the new BBC sci-fi drama Outcasts, isn’t it?
“That’s right. Initially, I wasn’t sure about doing it because I didn’t want to do something so similar to Battlestar Galactica. Battlestar was such an untouchable experience. I didn’t want to sully it with something else that might not live up to it. I play a pioneer on a colonised planet. Earth has gone kaput and there are 50,000 people left trying to make an existence for themselves on a planet far, far away. But he’s also damaged goods – he’s a like bomb waiting to go off.”

Have you anything else coming up?
“I’m doing my first French language film. It’s a romantic comedy and I play a character loosely based on Andre Agassi. I speak the language and it’s been a dream of mine to work in French for years.”

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