\u201cI remember reading some reviews of series one that were like, \u2018Oh, this is so ridiculous, we\u2019re so far away from this,\u2019\u2019 lead star Holliday Grainger<\/a> tells me days before series three premieres on BBC One<\/a>. \u201cAnd in just a few years, it\u2019s not just special tech guys in the military that are doing deep fakes, it\u2019s anyone on TikTok. You can literally do it in your front room. The technology has evolved so quickly that the first series is almost pass\u00e9.\u201d<\/p>\n The Capture follows Grainger\u2019s Rachel Carey, a dogged detective inspector who unearths a conspiracy surrounding deepfake tech, known as Correction. And while some of the show\u2019s early plot twists had been branded unbelievable, creator Ben Chanan found that, while writing follow-up seasons, he had to dream up zanier ideas in an attempt to stay ahead of real life.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Holliday Grainger returns as DI Rachel Carey in ‘The Capture’ (BBC)<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I did series one, I thought, \u2018People already know there\u2019s a s***-load of CCTV cameras. We just needed something else to make it scary \u2013 ie Big Brother\u2019s not just watching you, he\u2019s f***ing with you.\u2019 Now, we\u2019re constantly playing a game of, \u2018Are we ahead or are we behind?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Each series introduces a new figure, footage of whom has been altered to make them guilty of crimes they had nothing to do with: Fantastic Beasts actor \u2013 and potential future Bond<\/a> \u2013 Callum Turner played soldier Shaun Emery, accused of kidnapping and assaulting his barrister, in series one; The Lazarus Project\u2019s Paapa Essiedu, recently cast as Professor Snape in HBO\u2019s Harry Potter show<\/a>, played politician Isaac Turner, who was \u201cseen\u201d colluding with enemy world leaders in series two. But really, this is Grainger\u2019s show \u2013 and series three knows it. The new episodes place her at the centre of the latest conspiracy kicked off by a terror attack, the ripples of which run deeper than even Carey can imagine. To utter another word would risk spoiling the opening episode\u2019s surprises.<\/p>\n In Carey, The Capture has a career-driven protagonist for the ages \u2013 a straight-shooting detective unafraid of standing up to her superiors (Lia Williams\u2019s inscrutable DSU Gemma Garland) or the shadowy figures lurking in the wings (Hellboy\u2019s Ron Perlman shows up as a ruthless CIA chief named Frank Napier \u2013 as if you needed another reason to watch). The show has been a ratings hit \u2013 5.66 million average in year one; 3.81 million in year two \u2013 yet has fallen short of becoming a water-cooler success like, say, Line of Duty. More fool us: The Capture matches the thrilling highs of that procedural and boasts more surprising twists than Noughties favourite Spooks. It\u2019s the kind of show that demands your attention and will leave you trailing in the dust if you dare to check WhatsApp for one second.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t be on your phone in the background because you will miss it,\u201d says Grainger<\/a>. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t purposely repeat or spoon-feed the audience. Obviously, in a cop show, there has to be a lot of exposition, but Ben doesn\u2019t dumb it down. He\u2019s quite unapologetic in his use of jargon.\u201d This is a far cry from a lot of what we see on Netflix, whose shows are claimed to be produced with the expectation that viewers might be watching while scrolling through their phones. According to producer Justine Bateman<\/a>, showrunners have been given notes that the episodes they\u2019ve written for the streamer \u201caren\u2019t second-screen enough\u201d. <\/p>\n The technology has evolved so quickly that the first series is almost pass\u00e9<\/p>\n Holliday Grainger<\/p>\n Hammering home the realism of The Capture is the show\u2019s research team, led by Chanan, as well as an advisor who used to work in counter terrorism. It was this anonymous soul who guided Grainger to a shocking realisation: that the plot wasn\u2019t as impossible as she\u2019d believed. \u201cHe\u2019s had his finger in a lot of pies all over the place, and everything he tells us is off the record, so he\u2019s quite open. After just talking to him for five minutes, I realised nothing was far-fetched.\u201d<\/p>\n Deepfake controversies have become depressingly myriad \u2013 not to mention chilling \u2013 in recent years: altered videos of public figures, including Elon Musk, have been used to con people into investment scams and, in 2023, a mother in Arizona was targeted in a \u201cvirtual kidnapping” scam, in which she was demanded to pay a $1m ransom after hearing a doctored version of her daughter\u2019s voice screaming for help. More recently, Musk\u2019s AI chatbot tool, known as Grok, permitted users to create sexualised deepfake images of women, including underage girls. But the best example of real life mirroring The Capture arrived in March 2022, with the storyline of Essideu\u2019s aforementioned MP, who finds himself the victim of a deepfake peddling political misinformation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were making the series at the same time as the war in Ukraine broke out and there was a fake Zelensky video going around, and I was like \u2018OK, it\u2019s totally catching us up,\u2019” Chanan recalls. The video, which surfaced on Meta and YouTube, showed a fake version of the Ukrainian president declaring peace with Russian president Vladimir Putin. It was reportedly uploaded to a hacked Ukrainian news website and Meta and YouTube later removed the video for violating misinformation policies.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Paapa Essiedu returns as politician Isaac Turner in series three of ‘The Capture’ (BBC)<\/p>\n Things hit a new peak for Grainger during the making of the third series, when she found the lines between reality and fiction had become somewhat blurred in her eyes. Her inner conspiracy theorist was drawn to the fore.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile we were shooting series three, world events just went crazy,\u201d the British actor says. \u201cPowerful people were making crazy decisions in a way that just felt baffling. I started to read world events in a different way. I was like, \u2018Who is behind these decisions and why?\u2019 Because I don\u2019t believe it\u2019s individual governments just trying to run countries for the best.\u201d<\/p>\n Chanan shares Grainger\u2019s doubt: \u201cI still don\u2019t understand how we\u2019re supposed to believe, say, if you\u2019re in court, and someone says, \u2018Here\u2019s a video of a guy doing a crime.\u2019 Are they? Probably, if you\u2019re telling me that\u2019s what it is, but how do we know? It\u2019s so easy to fake that \u2013 anyone can get an app and do it themselves. So it\u2019s like, what are we gonna do about this? I don\u2019t have the answer!\u201d<\/p>\n While shooting series three, I started to read world events in a different way<\/p>\n Holliday Grainger<\/p>\n If The Capture provides no solutions to this knotty, terrifying issue, it will certainly sort out an equally as prevalent, if far less important problem: what TV show to binge next. The propulsive plot twists and bombshell cliffhanger endings only intensify in the third season, which places Carey \u2013 and the viewer \u2013 at the heart of the latest Correction conspiracy. Essiedu, Williams and Perlman are all back, alongside Ben Miles as the roguish Commander Danny Hart and Indira Varma as fictional BBC Newsnight presenter Khadija Khan. New additions include Killian Scott and Linus Roache, but you\u2019ll have to tune in to find out how they\u2019re involved in proceedings.<\/p>\n Another returnee for the new series is Carey\u2019s green coat \u2013 an item of clothing that has become as synonymous with the character as Luther\u2019s tweed jacket and Vera\u2019s brown trench. Such is the power of the coat \u2013 selected by costume designer Hayley Nebauer \u2013 that the team sits down regularly to discuss whether or not Carey should wear it in the scene they\u2019re about to film.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Holliday Grainger says playing DI Rachel Carey in ‘The Capture’ has made her question world events (BBC)<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a strength to the coat!\u201d says Grainger. \u201cIt\u2019s my armour. I don\u2019t know whether Carey\u2019s just more baller with the coat or whether it just gives me confidence and I play her more baller when I\u2019ve got the coat on. Where does Carey end and I begin?\u201d (This writer can confirm, from attending a set visit, that the former is true.)<\/p>\n When The Capture ends next month, fans will no doubt be wondering if the show will ever return. Grainger, though, wouldn\u2019t mind if this were the closing chapter of Carey\u2019s story. \u201cI feel like all the best shows are trilogies,\u201d she says. \u201cBut who knows? The Capture has the scope to go on \u2013 and to go anywhere. So I guess that would depend on Ben\u2019s brain.\u201d<\/p>\n Well?<\/p>\n \u201cThree is a nice number,\u201d Chanan agrees. \u201cA trilogy feels nice. What we do after this, I don\u2019t know. This is maybe it. But at the same time, I feel the whole subject of AI, and how we\u2019re going to live with it, is still evolving, for sure. We\u2019re just at the beginning of it. So there\u2019s plenty of material and inspiration if we want to do another series.\u201d <\/p>\n \u2018The Capture\u2019 series three starts at 9pm on BBC One<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-458802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Holliday](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Screenshot-2026-03-04-at-13-17-31.png\")
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<\/p>\n![\"Holliday](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Screenshot-2026-03-04-at-13-18-10.png\")
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