Chris Carson is already broken when we meet him on the back seat of a patrol car, counting down the minutes of a 12-hour shift that begins with a dead body in a children’s playground and ends with him laundering drug money through his kitchen cupboard. Martin Freeman plays the veteran response officer as a man physically allergic to stillness, his eyes scanning every corridor for escape routes his conscience can’t find. Opposite him, Adelayo Adedayo’s rookie Rachel arrives fresh from training college, still mouthing the phonetic alphabet, and is immediately dragged into back-alley negotiations where the only law is debt.
Creator Tony Schumacher, himself a former Merseyside officer, scripts the series like a diary of escalating reprimands: every episode another Professional Standards file, another smashed wing-mirror, another addict owed a favour. Liverpool at 3am is shot in sodium glare and rain that never quite washes the blood off the pavement, the camera tailing Chris through terraced houses where mothers keep crack in the baby-food cupboard and grandfathers guard heroin with shotguns. Ian Hart’s drug baron Carl operates out of a tanning salon; MyAnna Buring’s Kate, Chris’s wife, balances the household books by hiding rolls of twenties under the frozen peas.
BBC One cancelled the drama after two series and ten episodes, leaving Chris’s final decision—hand in the badge or keep the bribe—hanging like the mist over the Mersey. The last scene, a static shot of a patrol car abandoned on the dock road, engine running, door open, is the closest television has come to admitting that sometimes the job just keeps the seat warm until the next desperate soul climbs in.
Production Details
BBC One / 2 Seasons / 10 Episodes / 2022 - Present
Created by: Tony Schumacher
Showrunner(s): Mona Qureshi, Martin Freeman
Writer(s): Tony Schumacher
Producer(s): Rebecca Ferguson
Cinematography: Johan Heurlin Aidt, Seppe Van Grieken
Main Cast
Martin Freeman as Chris Carson
Adelayo Adedayo as Rachel Hargreaves
Emily Fairn as Casey
Romi Hyland-Rylands as Tilly Carson
Josh Finan as Marco
Mark Womack as Barry
Warren Brown as Raymond Mullen
MyAnna Buring as Kate Carson
Faye McKeever as Jodie Sweeney
Amaka Okafor as Debs
Philip Barantini as Steve
Philip Shaun McGuinness as Ian
