TV Pick of the Week: The Responder - review by Yvette Huddleston

Martin Freeman is once again outstanding in his role as permanent night shift officer Chris Carson, a man on the verge of a breakdown, whose life seems to be a series of bad decisions. He recognises this pattern of behaviour and expresses it in the therapy group he is now attending, which is full of other lonely middle-aged men and run by a sympathetic alcoholic priest. The kind of work that Carson and his young patrol partner Rachel Hargreaves (Adelayo Adedayo) do exposes the deep fissures in society. The people they encounter are desperate, destitute, disenfranchised, let down by a system that is, at best, struggling to function, and at worst just doesn’t seem to care.

Chris is a good man in a bad situation, trying to do his best – and many of his problems arise from the fact that he does care. It is six months on from the events of the first series. Chris is separated from his wife Kate (MyAnna Buring) who is threatening to move down to London with their young daughter. Chris knows that to prevent that from happening he needs to get a job on the day shift and in his desperation to secure one, he is tempted down a criminal route that could turn very nasty indeed.

Meanwhile, he has reluctantly reconnected with his estranged father (Bernard Hill, on brilliant form in his final role) who is now elderly, infirm – and lonely – and he is trying to support Rachel who is still recovering from the trauma of domestic abuse, has just failed her sergeant’s exams and is re-evaluating whether she wants to stay on the job. He is also trying to protect ‘scallys’ Casey (Emily Fairn) and Marco (Josh Finan), two damaged young people who just need some love and to be given a chance. It is powerful, propulsive stuff with a lot of heart and a nice line in dry Scouse humour. Unmissable.