Strike series 5
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Strike series 5 Troubled Blood: Start date confirmed for Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger drama

Oh how we've missed them!

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BBC One has announced the news we’ve all been waiting for – Cormoran Strike is returning in Strike series 5 soon!

Strike: Troubled Blood is set to premiere on BBC One later this year.

Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger will reprise their popular roles as Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott in the fifth run of the detective drama.

So when does the series return, how many episodes will it be, and what else do we know?

Read on for all the details!

Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger smiling happily as they hold filming clapper for Strike
Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger behind the scenes of Strike series 5 (Credit: BBC One)

When is Strike coming back?

Strike will return with series 5 on Sunday December 11 2022 at 9pm.

Episode 2 of Strike: Troubled Blood will air on Monday December 12 2022 at 9pm.

Episode 3 will air the following Sunday on December 18 2022 and finish with episode 4 on Monday December 19 2022 at 9pm.

What book is Strike series 5 based on?

Strike series 5 is called Trouble Blood.

It’s based on the book of the same name.

Fans know that the Strike series is based on JK Rowling‘s best-selling crime novels written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

Tom Burke in The Lazarus Project
Strike star Tom Burke recently played a villain in the cast of The Lazarus Project (Credit: Sky)

What is the plot of Strike series 5 Troubled Blood?

Private detective Cormoran Strike is visiting his family in Cornwall when he’s approached by a woman asking for help.

She wants to find her mother, Margot Bamborough, who went missing under mysterious circumstances in 1974.

Strike’s never tackled a cold case before, let alone one 40 years old!

But, despite the slim chance of success, he’s intrigued and takes it on – adding it to the long list of cases that he and his partner in the detective agency Robin Ellacott are currently working on.

Robin herself is also juggling a messy divorce and unwanted male attention as well as battling her own feelings about Strike.

As Strike and Robin investigate Margot’s disappearance, they come up against a fiendishly complex case with a psychopathic serial killer and witnesses who cannot all be trusted.

They learn that even cases decades old can prove to be deadly.

Who’s in the cast of Strike series 5 Troubled Blood?

Tom Burke return as the lovably shambolic war veteran Cormoran Strike.

The actor is perhaps best known for playing Athos in The Musketeers, or Fedya Dolokhov in War & Peace.

He recently played villain Rebrov in The Lazarus Project.

Meanwhile, Holliday Grainger reprises her role as Cormoran’s sidekick (aka love interest) Robin Ellacott.

She recently blew everyone away with her badass portrayal of DI Rachel Carey in The Capture.

Unforgotten actress Cherie Lunghi will join the cast of Strike series 5.

Agatha Raisin actress Sophie Ward will also appear, as does Call the Midwife star Linda Bassett (aka Phyllis Crane), and Tin Star’s brilliant young actress Abigail Lawrie.

This England actress Anna Calder-Marshall, The Others’ Fionnula Flanagan, and Starlings’ Daniel Peacock will also star, alongside Ruth Sheen, Syrus Lowe, Carol MacReady, Genevieve Hulme-Beaman, and Philip Cornwell.

Recent Doc Martin guest star Kenneth Cranham joins the cast, as does Robin Askwith of The Madam Blanc Mysteries.

Returning actors include Kerr Logan as Matthew, Sarah Sweeney as Lucy, and Ben Crompton as ‘Shanker’.

Kierston Wareing, Samuel Oatley, Jack Greenlees, Christina Cole, and Ian Redford also return.

Holliday Grainger as Rachel in The Capture
Holliday Grainger recently played Rachel in series two of The Capture (Credit: Nick Wall/BBC)

How many episodes will Strike series 5 be?

Strike: Troubled Blood will be four episodes.

Each episode will be 60 minutes long.

That’s four hours of cosy drama right there!

You can watch the series on BBC One later this year.

Who directs Strike series 5 Troubled Blood?

Sue Tully directs Strike series 5.

Her credits include Too Close, Line of Duty, Tin Star, The A Word, and The Musketeers.

She also directed Strike: Lethal White.

Of course, we know Susan Tully as Michelle Fowler in EastEnders.

Tom Edge, the man behind Vigil, wrote the script.

Will Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott get together?

Well, it’s the question that keeps maybe of us tuning in every series.

The pair are clearly mad about each other, and have even shared an accidental nearly-kiss!

However, their path to love is heaped with ex-husbands, and hang-ups.

Could Strike series 5 be when they finally get it together?

Watch this space!

Read more: The Capture on BBC One: Will there be a series 3 of the cyber-crime thriller?

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Strike series 5 Troubled Blood will air on Sunday December 11 at 9pm on BBC One.

Are you excited to see Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott return? Leave us a comment on our Facebook page @EntertainmentDailyFix.


Helen Fear
TV Editor