The BBC, as it happens periodically, is at the center of a heated discussion in the UK: the minister of culture Nadine Dorries has proposed (on Twitter) to abolish the license fee and to find “new forms of financing”, which, however, could only be the same as commercial TVs, or advertising and / or subscriptions. A series like The responder (aired on January 24th and still unreleased by us) would be an excellent argument to use against those who criticize the current model of British public service. Is it conceivable, at the moment, that Netflix, Amazon or Disney would invest in such a product? I strongly doubt it.
Played by a perfect Martin Freeman and very far from his good-natured public image, the protagonist of The responder it’s Chris Carson, a Liverpool policeman whom we follow for five night shifts over the course of five episodes. Lonely driving his car, Chris takes over the calls from the central and, as he says to his psychologist: “every night I end up with spit in my face and blood on my boots, and then it starts all over again.” “But it’s such an important job,” she tries to console him, to no avail: “I don’t remember the last time I did good,” continues Chris.
The first episode seems to set a drama realistic about the life of simple cops, about the constant wear and tear of life on the road (and it wouldn’t have been bad at all with these premises), but soon instead the plot takes the form of a thriller very dark and enthralling, centered on Chris’s dramatic catabasis, sucked into his dark sides and dangerous bonds. Freeman effectively conveys the seething anger of a man crushed by the constant chores of a life he has lost control of.
Tony Shumacher, creator of the series, made his debut as a screenplay at the age of fifty: in addition to having written two novels, he is a former policeman and a former taxi driver. I don’t know how much he relied on real events for this series, but certainly his experience on the road shines through in the effectiveness of the dialogues and the dramatic force of the narrative situations. The Responder finds a very risky balance somewhere in between Breaking bad e The wireand here and there it even manages to make people laugh.
The responder