BritBox & ITV Promise a Scottish Thrillride in 'Payback'

Since hitting it big with Line of Duty, Jed Mercurio’s production outfit HTM has become one of the leading propulsive thriller action series producers. From Bodyguard to Bloodlands and more traditional police procedural series like D.I. Ray, these shows have been immediate audience favorites wherever they end up on American streaming. The latest entry, the Scottish-set Payback, heading for BritBox on American shores and ITVX in the U.K., does not look like it will be an exception. Starring Morven Christie (Grantchester) and Peter Mullan (Liaison), the first trailer suggests this series will be another home run.

Payback was initially announced as going into production in September 2022, with Christie and Mullan attached from the outset. Unlike some of Mercurio’s other projects, This is not written or produced by fellow Line of Duty alums but by screenwriter Debbie O’Malley, best known in the states as one of the regular writers on the All Creatures Great & Small reboot. The series, a co-production between ITV and BritBox International, would be the second Mercutio-produced thriller to land on the streaming service after the Irish-centered Bloodlands.

Christie’s character, billed as an “ordinary wife and mother,” was promised by the series logline to be heading “through the loopholes and increasingly grey areas of fiscal malpractice, into the murky world of organized crime, Payback poses the disconcerting question: just how far might any of us go, if we thought we could get away with it?” Check out the first trailer to see how the show answers that question.