This article contains spoilers for McDonald & Dodds Season 4

Summer is a great time for GBH Drama viewers to catch up on series they’ve missed and find new things to binge. McDonald & Dodds is a gem offering the best of both the cozy and gritty facets of UK mystery and police procedural series. The 90-minute episode format allows plenty of room for fun guest appearances from actors many fans will recognize, as well as more time to delve into the personal lives of the main characters.

The series begins with DCI Lauren McDonald (Tala Gouveia) temporarily transferring from the London Metropolitan Police to Bath after an investigation went wrong. She’s a Black millennial who has to adjust to a slower pace of life in Bath, with fewer gangs to police, and more murders related to inheritance disputes to investigate. On the Bath police force, she’s now in charge of several junior staff. One of them is DS Dodds (Jason Watkins), a middle-aged white officer who senior management would love to see retire — he refuses. Dodds’ style of policing is methodical and avoids technology, but it results in finding clues leading to arrests. McDonald carries an iPad everywhere and shows suspects a firm hand. Dodds and McDonald are assigned to work together closely and over time they realize that their skills and personalities are better in combination than separately.

Season 4 finds Dodds and McDonald investigating the world of Blues music fans, a murder that leads to past family secrets being uncovered, and a string of cases disturbing Bath’s wedding festival bliss. GBH Drama interviewed Jason Watkins and Tala Gouveia to discover their takes on this season’s character developments and what happened behind the scenes of Series 4.

How does Season 4 build on the bond between Dodds and McDonald?

JASON WATKINS: The two main leads are a middle-aged white man and a young Black woman, and they’re from very different backgrounds. The fact that Dodds and McDonald are friends is a wonderful thing in itself. The characters are close, they understand each other. Of course, they should. But also, yeah, you can touch on other topics as well.

I think what’s great about McDonald & Dodds is that those typical whodunit murder mystery things are underpinned by strong human relationships and human feelings, either between Dodds and McDonald or characters that we meet. When you get good actors, then the characters from each case become convincing. And that’s one of the joys for Tala and I… it’s like, “Who have we got next to work with?”

Dodds learns emotional intelligence from McDonald. At the beginning of the series, he’d just say something because it came into his mind. Now Dodds would work out how to broach subjects. He’s had a really good time with her. She’s brought him out of his shell.

One of the strengths of the series, which you get particularly in this season, and certainly in Episodes 1 and 3, is how each of the characters at some point gets involved in the plot or there’s something in the plot that touches their lives. McDonald is at a crossroads in her life. Is she going to start a family? Or when she does, how is that going to work with her career, like a lot of people?

With Dodds, he’s found this new lease on life despite getting older and he’s gaining experiences perhaps he didn’t have before. And of course in [one] episode, he’s embroiled into the death of his friend. And I think that’s great, the way that it touches Dodds, but then it touches the way that McDonald is almost maternal towards my feelings, and she’s a very good friend. All that I think is gold dust because it’s unusual within this sort of program. Once we’ve built up this audience, which we’ve done, we can be creative with them and take them places where they weren’t expecting.

TALA GOUVEIA: I believe McDonald and Dodds complement each other. She’s very good at making decisions and running the team. In Episode 3, Dodds has to run the investigation and he kind of forgets what he’s doing and the younger police team has to make all the suggestions and help him out, which is a lovely little beginning. While he’s not great at leading others, he still has this great smart mind, so I think they help each other out.

Season 4, Episode 1 makes cultural connections between the UK and America many people may not have recognized before. How much knowledge of Blues music and its history did you have before filming this episode, and what do you think about theme episodes like this one?

JASON WATKINS: I believe the theme episodes are one of the series’ main strengths. It’s not a serious crime drama or true crime. It knows what it is. It’s a bit like Only Murders in the Building. That’s the world that we’ve created with this beautiful city of Bath, but also out of a great tradition of British stuff like Sherlock Holmes and all that kind of stuff; whodunit. And then straight away you have an opportunity to talk about whatever subject in that area in terms of race — us all getting on and all that, and racism that still exists.

And I think people are just as likely, if not more likely, to watch this and be introduced to a subject, then they would, say, ‘okay. Tell us about the birth of the Blues.’ They may go, ‘okay, that’s interesting. But it’s not for me now. I’m too busy. But oh, it’s McDonald and Dodds.’ And then you get something surprising as well. The UK has had some great guitarists — Eric Clapton, et cetera — but they have been white, middle-class guys from Surrey who started playing the guitar, whereas the birth of the Blues was in the American South. On the other hand, Jimi Hendrix started his career in London; Britain gave him a platform.

TALA GOUVEIA: I’m also a big fan of the themed ones. I loved the blues music theme. Often the writer, Robert Murphy, will put loads of music references into the scripts. We don’t always get the rights to the songs to appear on the show, but I always get a sense that he is very passionate and loves music. His passion really comes through with this episode and I love it, and I love the kind of supernatural element of Robert Johnson’s meeting the devil at the crossroads. The Mississippi Delta is so different to Bath, but I just love how those elements are linked together.

The city of Bath is as much of a character in the series as the police and the suspects in the cases. What are your thoughts on this, as well as your favorite filming locations?

JASON WATKINS: Bath is a great place to come and visit. We started filming Season 4 in the beautiful city earlier in the summer, which is always just great. In the previous series, we filmed in the autumn. It’s quite interesting shooting around the tourists because Bath is such a popular destination for Americans and other international visitors.

TALA GOUVEIA: My favorite location was the building on Bath’s Cheese Company’s property. We turned the building into the little village hall for the Festival of Ideas scenes in Episode 1. So I had cheese for lunch every day and it was really good.

Bath’s most famous resident Jane Austen is finally mentioned this season. Was this a surprise to you?

TALA GOUVEIA: There’s so much Jane Austen stuff in Bath when you’re walking around. I think it would definitely be good to have her a little bit more involved in another episode. It’s funny, I was expecting Jason to dive a little bit deeper into it during Episode 1’s filming because back in the day, he was in Miss Austen Regrets. I think he’s related to her because he’s talked about this before.

Who was your favorite guest star to work with this season?

JASON WATKINS: These episodes have often relied on great actors coming in. Tala and I wanted to lead by example, so we wanted everybody who came to join us to feel as though we are taking it seriously. It is fun, but also they can come to Bath and do their best work. Hugh Quarshie, my goodness, he gives a brilliant performance. I also enjoyed working with Toby Stephens and Lydia Leonard.

TALA GOUVEIA: I think Hugh Quarshie really led episode one beautifully. I also really loved working with Victoria Hamilton. She’s just amazing. Watching her work, sometimes I’d be like, ‘oh, I’ve forgotten that I have to also act now.’ Victoria is such a pro and really fun. I just really liked her character as well.

Many fans have theorized that Dodds may be autistic or have another form of neurodivergence. What is your perspective and how does that influence your acting choices?

JASON WATKINS: The writers and I talked about this early on. I don’t think he is on the spectrum, but I think he can have, perhaps, tendencies towards that. Essentially he’s an analog man in a digital world. I think that’s really where he operates and he still trusts his instinct. He’s obviously very sharp and observant while very inexperienced in relationships. I think we’d worked out that he was married once, but it didn’t work out and he’s been stung by it, and [hasn’t] been capable of opening up and having another relationship.

Dodds is a shy person and at the moment where, because of technology, et cetera, the louder you shout sometimes it seems the more people are listening to you, but what you’re saying isn’t necessarily that interesting. On the other hand, someone who’s very quiet and doesn’t bang their own drum — it doesn’t mean they’re not clever and deserve to be valued. I like that about Dodds.

TALA GOUVEIA: I guess everyone’s on the spectrum somewhere, because it’s a spectrum, but I don’t see him as autistic. As the series progresses, Dodds gains more emotional intelligence. While he has had quite a lonely life, he changes as he becomes more aware of his surroundings and is more around people thanks to McDonald.

During the season finale, McDonald first visualizes her future in a dream, then finally decides where her relationship with her boyfriend is going. Were you surprised by this cliffhanger? 

JASON WATKINS:

Yeah. In Dodds’s mind, [McDonald’s boyfriend] would be this really handsome guy. In one of the previous series, we meet when he fixes the boiler but the audience doesn’t see her. It’s almost like I become his best friend. Even he’s more friendly with the boyfriend than Lauren sometimes, which makes her a bit jealous. Yeah, he’s really cool and tall and handsome. And she’s not easy. She’s not easy to get on with.

TALA GOUVEIA: I don’t see McDonald as a church wedding kind of person and I think she’d have a different dress than in the vision. Dodds should grow a mustache like in the vision as well.

All episodes of McDonald and Dodds are currently streaming on BritBox. Season 1 is also airing on GBH in September.

Episode 1: Sunday, September 1 at 9pm on GBH2 (repeats Tuesday, September 3 at 9pm on GBH 44 and Saturday, September 7 at 9pm on GBH 2)

Episode 2: Sunday, September 8 at 9pm on GBH2 (repeats Tuesday, September 10 at 9pm on GBH 44 and Saturday, September 14 at 9pm on GBH 2)