Iain Glen, Ben Chaplin & Susan Lynch Have Got ‘Bad Blood’

The surprise success of Mr Bates vs the Post Office seemed like a fluke, a confluence of events that caused the series to effect real political change during a moment when nearly two decades of Tory rule was about to topple. The combination of an early-internet horror story, a clearly unjust outcome, and an all-star cast drove the four-part series to record ratings when it premiered on New Year’s Day 2024.

However, that success has reverberated through ITV like a clarion call to action. The production heads are convinced audiences are crying out for more dramatizations of terrible crimes and cover-ups from the recent past in the U.K. and stories of real people getting justice after decades of fighting. Since then, ITV has produced both The Hack and I Fought the Law, neither of which reached the same level of viewership. However, perhaps Bad Blood can succeed where they failed.

Unlike the others that followed the early 2000s-set Bates, Bad Blood is also a period-set affair, focused on the Treloar Scandal of the 1990s. A boarding school for disabled and terminally ill children, it failed to monitor the blood supply it was using for transfusions. This failure of oversight caused the school to administer contaminated blood and blood products to 30,000 people over 25 years from the early 1970s on, and caused 3,000 deaths. The series will cover both the initial negligence and subsequent cover-up.

Here’s the series synopsis:

The drama centers on four boys at Treloar’s, a unique boarding school for disabled children with an attached specialized NHS center for hemophiliacs whose lives would otherwise be defined by regular, grueling trips to the hospital. The boys receive Factor VIII, a revolutionary treatment that promises them a longer lifespan and greater freedom. Unbeknownst to them or their parents, the doctors whom the boys trust with their lives use them as guinea pigs in trials to test blood products, some of which are sourced from high-risk, paid donors in the United States, including prisoners.

When the medical establishment learns of the transmission of new diseases, Hepatitis C and AIDS, they fail to act, and people across the country are exposed. As the drama unfolds, the children at Treloar’s begin to show signs of the diseases. Bad Blood will dramatize the institutional failures within Government and the medical establishment that led to this avoidable disaster, and the cover-up that has tried to hide it. It will also show the decades-long fight by the survivors and their families for truth and justice.

The cast is led by a trio of PBS favorites: Iain Glen (Downton Abbey), Ben Chaplin (Press), and Susan Lynch (Unforgotten). The ensemble also includes Luke Treadaway (The Serial Killer’s Wife), Patrick Fabian (PONIES), Precious Wura Alabi (Boiling Point), Hannah McClean (Blue Lights), Joe Absolom (Code of Silence), Ron Cook (Les Misérables), Peter Sullivan (Criminal Record), and Cal MacAninch (Mr. Selfridge).

Peter Moffat (Scoop) wrote the four-part series, working closely with the victims and their families. Director Julia Ford (Until I Kill You) helms all installments, with Abi Bach producing. Ford and Moffat serve as executive producers alongside Simon Heath, Joe Williams, and Annabel Jones.

Bad Blood is officially filming in the U.K. It is expected to debut on ITV in 2027; it does not yet have an American distributor.