What Do We Know About The Capture Season 4?

Artificial intelligence (AI) has transitioned from conversations in tech-specialist arenas to watercooler chats in all of our workplaces as it continues to infiltrate all of our lives. But there’s one BBC drama that was worried about tech’s impact on law and order as far back as 2019. Spanning deepfakes, state-sanctioned disinformation and the surveillance state, led by Holliday Grainger, The Capture is a tense conspiracy drama bringing so many of our contemporary issues into terrifying light.

The scarily timely third season is the perfect example: think Russian spies, far-right extremists connecting on 4chan and far-reaching conspiracies that prove a deep state, operating outside of the law, underlies our democracy. Grappling to stay one step ahead of all of the above is DI Rachel Carey (Grainger), acting head of counter-terrorism unit SO15, who has been fighting to expose ‘Correction’ – the state-sanctioned video editing software that creates false yet admissible evidence – since she uncovered it in season 1.

Now, some light spoilers. Rachel faced her biggest challenge yet in season 3, when she found herself inexplicably the lone witness in a shocking public assassination of the home secretary Isaac Turner (Paapa Essiedu), who himself was subject to a live deepfake attack in season 2. The man who pulled the trigger, Noah Pierson (Killian Scott) escapes without a trace – only to reappear later as the newly-appointed Commander of SO15. It’s the first in a series of shock-deaths in season 3, which can safely be described as The Capture’s twistiest, most ambitious instalment to date.

Consistently raking in high ratings for the BBC – which keeps anticipation high by releasing episodes weekly rather than all at once – with the season 3 finale now wrapped up, our minds are naturally drifting to the future of the series. Here’s what we know about The Capture season 4 – with season 3 spoilers ahead…

CTFSO George (FREDERICK SCHMIDT) & Rachel Carey (HOLLIDAY GRAINGER) in The Capture. (BBC/Universal International Studios/Laurence Cendrowicz)

The Capture Season 4: Will It Happen?

The Capture season 4 is ‘potentially’ in the works according to the series creator, writer and occasional director Ben Chanan. He tells The Guardian, ‘There’s no shortage of terrifying technology to write about, that’s for sure.’

The news follows the explosive season 3 finale, which aired on Sunday 12 April on BBC One – and, as always, raised just as many questions as it gave answers. If it goes ahead, we expect lead star Grainger to return to her role as dogged DI Rachel Carey – though there’s no saying who she will be joined by as the official Commander of Counter Terror. And we’re sure she has some follow-up questions of her own after season 3’s big reveals.

Noah Pierson (KILLIAN SCOTT) & Rachel Carey (HOLLIDAY GRAINGER) in The Capture. (BBC/Universal International Studios/Laurence Cendrowicz)

What Is The Capture Based On?

Sometimes The Capture can feel scarily real – but that’s the result of extensive research and clever writing by Chanan and his team of experts, not specific real stories.

It’s all penned by former documentarian Chanan who tells The Guardian: ‘It turns out The Capture is more rooted in reality than I intended. I consume a lot of news, so issues in the headlines find their way into the show naturally. Disinformation and deepfakes seem more and more pressing each season. It often feels like the world is catching up with The Capture. There’s a drumbeat of war during this series. I never thought we’d be teetering on the brink of a real one when it aired.’

That said, of course many of the issues we see are applicable to our society; Chanan just ‘[takes] that to the nth degree,’ he says. Speaking on season 3 and its introduction of the E Squadron, he says: ‘There’s always been triage in hospitals or on battlefields to determine who to operate on first and who’s more likely to survive. Now they’re using AI to make those decisions, so the army deploying it to design entire ops is easy to imagine. […] What if a renegade regiment experiments with AI and becomes completely dependent on it? To the point where AI keeps changing their objective and they’re following blindly? If you programme a computer to save the West at all costs, it could lead in all kinds of directions.’

Noah Pierson (KILLIAN SCOTT) in The Capture. (BBC/Universal International Studios/Laurence Cendrowicz)

Is E Squadron Real?

E Squadron is the kind of deep state organisation conspiracy theorists obsess over. In this case, however, it is totally real. Nicknamed ‘The Increment’ and formed by former SAS, SBS and SRR agents, E Squadron is a real, highly secretive, elite special forces unit conducting clandestine operations for Britain’s secret intelligence service – aka MI6. Members are specialists in intelligence gathering, surveillance and covert paramilitary action. As Chanan puts it: ‘They’re the best of the best and get up to some dark covert stuff.’

In The Capture season 3, it turns out that the mysterious Noah (Scott) is a member of this organisation, which has gone rogue under the rule of a very clever AI bot. To bring E Squadron to the screen, Chanan drew on his usual military consultants, but this time he got lucky. ‘By chance, one of our police advisers had a colleague who was ex-E Squadron, so we were able to get really good insights,’ he says.

DC Chloe Tan (TESSA WONG) in The Capture. (BBC/Universal International Studios/Laurence Cendrowicz)

Is Correction Real?

The video editing software at the centre of The Capture, Correction, is not real – as far as we know. Requiring live-feed manipulation, it is incredibly sophisticated technology that we see mature over the course of the three seasons: in season 1, the camera feed is hacked and pre-recorded footage replaces reality; in season 2, deepfakes can be used in a controlled environment; and by season 3, videos recorded on mobile phones are hacked by Correction.

It’s not beyond the realms of conceivability – and the idea could fall into the wrong hands. As writer Chanan tells The Guardian: ‘I saw an article this week about the possibility of criminal gangs using AI to do their own kind of Correction and saying, “I couldn’t have committed this crime at that time because look, here’s a video of me somewhere else.” How can we rely on video evidence when it can be faked? How can we trust government footage of missiles firing or buildings exploding?’

Rachel Carey (HOLLIDAY GRAINGER) in The Capture. (BBC/Universal International Studios/Laurence Cendrowicz)

All three seasons of The Capture are available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

WATCH