Will there be a series 3 of The Missing?

By James Gill

Published: Thursday, 14 April 2022 at 12:00 am

As the beloved BBC crime series finds new fans on Netflix, they may be asking one question: will there be a third series of The Missing?

Since the second series of the show aired in 2016, creators Harry and Jack Williams revealed that they were open to another series – but without the show’s French detective, Julien Baptiste.

Tchéky Karyo’s character subsequently got his own spin-off series, and the writers previously told RadioTimes.com that if they were to do more of The Missing, “it would be a brand new story and world”.

This revelation implied that the show would return with an entirely new lead cast, similarly to anthology series such as Fargo and True Detective.

Series one of The Missing starred James Nesbitt and Frances O’Connor as parents who enlisted Baptiste’s help in their desperate search for their son, who had disappeared while on a family holiday in France.

Series two then followed Keeley Hawes and David Morrissey as the parents of a missing schoolgirl, and Baptiste was once again assigned to the case.

A third series of the show would, if it eventually appears, not only recast the big-name actors playing the characters at the centre of the missing person case, but it would also feature a brand new detective.

In 2017, after the second series ended, Harry emphasised that a third instalment would need to be a completely fresh story: “It would have to be very different, it would have to not be cynical, and it would have to be saying something new,” he said. “Never say never.”