Simon Pegg has revealed that working on The Undeclared War has made him far more alert to the presence of social media bots – and the role they can play in fuelling division online.
The Channel 4 cyber-thriller returns for season 2 on Tuesday 24 July, picking up immediately after the events of the first run – aired in 2022 – as the team at GCHQ deals with the fallout from a major Russian cyber-attack.
However, Danny Patrick (Pegg) and his colleagues soon discover that Russia was not the true architect of the assault, while the presence of a mole within GCHQ creates an additional threat.
Speaking about what he had learned from making the series in an interview with Radio Times, Pegg said: “I can spot bots now very easily.
“Having realised that there are bot farms in other countries that are specifically set up to cause discord in British culture, you can see them now.
“You know exactly what they are and who they probably are.”
Pegg, who returns as GCHQ Head of Operations Danny Patrick, went on to describe online disinformation and cyberwarfare as a modern battlefield.
“It’s the new front line, and we’ve been quietly fighting the Third World War since the internet came into being, really,” he said.
Hannah Khalique-Brown, who reprises her role as gifted young coder Saara Parvin, agreed that the new season expands the scope of the story and explores how foreign powers can attempt to destabilise other countries over a prolonged period.
“In the second series, it takes it to a whole new level,” she said.
“You really see behind the curtain of, in our story, foreign powers working to long-term manipulate other countries and undermine Western democracy.”
Khalique-Brown added that the drama’s subject matter felt alarmingly close to events taking place in the real world. “It is pretty accurate, which is scary,” she said.
“Every day you see news reports about foreign espionage infiltrating the UK government, the UK royals – all of these dodgy spies coming and positioning themselves in the UK.
“That does not seem to be going away. It seems to be getting more and more intense. The strange world of espionage and foreign politics seems to be getting more exposed every day.”
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Season 2 also introduces Siân Brooke as Danny’s wife Barbara Patrick, a former MI5 officer who now works as an analyst at GCHQ.
Their relationship is set to form the emotional backbone of the six-part series, as personal and professional tensions place the pair on a collision course.
The cast also includes Alex Jennings, Danny Sapani, Ed Stoppard and Chloe Pirrie, while all six episodes are directed by Sherlock and Inside Man director Paul McGuigan.
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The Undeclared War season 2 premieres on Channel 4 on Tuesday 21 July 2026 at 9pm, with all episodes also available as a boxset.
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