The Bay make huge change for new series as Jenn gets own heartbreaking news

The Bay made a huge change ahead of its new series - as family liaison officer Jenn Townsend deals with a new case.

The hit ITV drama is back this evening for a brand new series, as Jenn navigates a brand new case alongside her team. The fifth series will see Jenn, played by Marsha Thomason, navigate the death of a 23-year-old university student.

Hannah is found dead on the edge of the docks and Morecambe's finest police team are immediately set to work on discovering what happened to her and why she died - as Jenn, who is battling her own grief following the death of her father, liaises with the family.

Speaking about the new series, Daragh Carville, the co-creator and writer, has revealed the show is doing a never before done storyline this time around, as he opened up on the brand new set of episodes.

In a chat with The Mirror and other press, he said: "This core thing about The Bay, which separates it from other crime dramas, is that it is also a family drama. At the heart, it is an emotional story about family.

"And so, when thinking about a new series, I really think about who the family will be. Because the USP about The Bay is it is about a family liaison officer. In every season, there’s a new crime and therefore a new family for Jenn to get to know. I start really thinking about the family and as they say, also thinking about what have we done before, what we haven’t done before."

He added: "What are the areas we haven’t quite explored. So I thought a divided family would be interesting. So in series five, we meet a family that has been through a divorce and a bitter separation. That makes life more difficult for Jenn and the police as they investigate the death of the family’s daughter, and work with this splintered and fractured family. That was the starting point."

This series, as ever, there will also be a focus on Jenn's own family life, as she grapples with her own grief.

"As ever, I wanted to explore Jenn’s family life because one of the key aspects of the series is that we go home with the central character and we explore what is going on with her home life as well as her work life. And then there’s the family of the police as well, led by Dan over the five series. It’s quite a lot of plates to spin but that’s the joy of it," he said.