'The Responder' Season 1 Finally Gets A U.S. Premiere Date

With only a few days left in April, the final pieces of the May streaming schedules are coming together, with a slew of release dates for the coming month. It's a crowded schedule from shows like Ridley Road on May 1 to Pistol on May 31st, with movies like Operation Mincemeat and Downton Abbey: A New Era in between. But fans will be making room for at least one more title, as BritBiox has confirmed the BBC's newest smash hit, The Responder, starring Martin Freeman (Sherlock), is also arriving in May 2022.

At first glance, The Responder looks like yet another entry in the endless police procedural lineup, with Freeman starring as a cop that's not as honorable as his badge suggests he should be. But the series, from BBC Writers Room emerging writers initiative graduate and former Merseyside Police officer Tony Schumacher, has captured a tone of realism that rarely makes it to such pro-law enforcement series. And part of what makes it work is centering on an officer who has one of the most challenging jobs in the business -- the overnight frontline response vehicle driver.

Freeman plays Chris Carson, demoted from his position as a Detective Inspector, and busted down to driving the night shift at a fictionalized constabulary in central Liverpool. But the personal demons that landed him in the middle of a corruption probe and got him downgraded don't just disappear with a new job, and his marriage and mental health are reaching a crisis point. Between the violent, aggressive streak brought on by his uncontrolled temper and the ongoing corruption probe that already took him down once, this is not your cops saves the day type series.