ITV has released the first-look teaser for The Blame, putting Michelle Keegan and Douglas Booth at the center of a murder investigation in the quiet-looking town of Wakestead. The series is due to air this autumn on ITV and ITVX.
That timing matters because the teaser is the first fresh look at a drama built to pull viewers into Sophie’s death, after the 16-year-old was first reported missing by her parents and later found dead. Keegan plays DI Emma Crane, who hears a police radio crackling in audio evidence and starts pushing on the idea that one officer was present the night Sophie was killed.
The Blame is adapted from Charlotte Langley’s novel of the same name, and the new footage frames it as more than a straight whodunit. It is being presented as part propulsive mystery, part social commentary, part love story, with the investigation set to dig into lies, institutional cover ups and moral compromise as Emma and DI Tom Radley follow the case deeper into the station.
That is where the story turns sharper. Radley warns Emma that pressing ahead will blow up our department, while she answers with to test me, a line that suggests she is willing to make the inquiry public even if it exposes the people around her. The teaser also shows her confronting PC Callallum Drummond in the station locker room, tightening the sense that the key question is not only who killed Sophie, but which officer was in the room when it happened.
The cast around Keegan and Booth includes Ian Hart, Nathan Mensah, Gavin Spokes, Nigel Boyle, Joe Armstrong, Matilda Freeman and Josh Bolt. For ITV and ITVX, the release gives The Blame a clear autumn launch and a crime drama hook that now has a face, a setting and a piece of evidence at its center.
