What Do We Know About Annika Series 3?

Created by Nick Walker for U&Alibi and based on his BBC Radio 4 drama Annika Stranded, Annika is a Scottish black comedy with Fleabag-style humour backdropped by the Glasgow Marine Homicide Unit (MHU). And with both series now available on BBC iPlayer, it’s easy for Brits to tune in for free.

Climbing BBC iPlayer’s ‘top 10’ charts, once you’ve finished binging the 12 episodes currently available, we’re sure you’ll be left with the same question as us: will there be a third series? Here’s what we know.

Nicola Walker as DI Annika Strandhed in Annika series 2. (© UKTV)

Annika Series 3: Everything We Know So Far

Annika series 2 may just have landed on BBC iPlayer, but it was first released on U&Alibi in summer 2023. It’s the streaming platform’s most-watched drama ever (or at least since it started recording viewing figures in 2014). But, two years on, there’s still no word on Annika series 3.

Inspired by BBC Radio 4’s Oslo-set nordic noir crime drama Annika Stranded, the series centres on DI Annika Strandhed (Nicola Walker) who heads up the newly formed (and totally fictional) Glasgow Marine Homicide Unit (MHU) and is tasked with solving gory crimes galore.

Nicola Walker as DI Annika Strandhed in Annika series 2. (© UKTV)

At the MHU (which is filmed at Beacon Arts Centre in Greenock, to the west of Glasgow), Annika is joined by DS Michael McAndrews (Jamie Sives), her second in command – who actually lost out to Annika as head of the unit. The team’s new search diver, Annika and Michael go way back: they were in police college together, but haven’t seen each other for years. Meanwhile, Annika is a single mother to teenager Morgan (Silvie Furneaux); the two clash a lot, pushing Annika to question her parenting skills.

Filmed primarily in Glasgow with additional filming in Argyll and near Loch Lomond, Annika has an added Fleabag-style comedy, with our protagonist delivering asides to-camera. At the end of the first series, our unreliable narrator gave us a big reveal: DS McAndrews is actually Morgan’s biological father. Morgan eventually discovers this in series 2, but the storyline is by no means wrapped up.

Silvie Furneaux as Morgan Strandhed in Annika series 2. (© UKTV)

Elsewhere, series 2 left us on a huge cliffhanger: Annika’s father Magnus (Sven Henriksen) may be involved in the brutal murder of a former police detective on Glasgow’s canals. If series 3 gets the greenlight, we think this knotty plot will be at the heart of the drama.

On a lighter note, there’s also the continued relationship between Annika and Jake Strathearn (Paul McGann), Morgan’s former therapist. At the end of series 2, Jake revealed he was in love with Annika and proposed the duo move in together – before Annika realised her father may well be a murderer.

Paul McGann as Jake Strathearn & Nicola Walker as DI Annika Strandhed in Annika series 2. (© UKTV)

The Cast

If Annika returns for series 3, we expect lead star Nicola Walker to return to the title role, joined by Silvie Furneaux as her daughter Morgan and Jamie Sives as her right hand man (and Morgan’s father) DS Michael McAndrews. Katie Leung as DC Blair Ferguson is also expected to return, as is Varada Sethu as DS Harper Weston, Paul McGann as Jake and Sven Henriksen as Annika’s father Magnus.

Busy schedules might be behind the delays: Walker recently starred in costume drama Mary & George, while Sives has been working on Shetland and Dept Q. Leung recently starred in Nightsleeper and has a big upcoming role in Bridgerton season 4, while Sethu was most recently seen as Belinda Chandra, the companion to the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) in Doctor Who series 15.

Sven Henriksen as Magnus Strandhed in Annika series 2. (© UKTV)

Release Date

There was a two year gap between Annika series 1 and 2, but it will be an even longer wait for series 3. With no word on a renewal just yet, we think 2026 is the earliest Annika series 3 could launch.

Annika is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

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