To Serve and Protect

A police station in one of Madrid's quieter, more forgotten neighbourhoods. The officers here do not chase headline cases. They deal with evictions, domestic violence, immigration disputes, petty crime, the slow grind of a community under pressure. This is the world of To Serve and Protect, a long-running Spanish drama that ran for seven seasons on RTVE and earned a devoted audience through the depth of its characters as much as the authenticity of its stories.

Rookie officer Alicia Ocaña arrives at Distrito Sur fresh from the academy, carrying a private grief alongside her ambitions: her mother has just died, and she suspects someone inside the station knows more than they should. She finds herself partnered with Rober Batista, a young officer shaped by the same streets he now polices, and mentored by Claudia Miralles, the station's true moral centre, a veteran whose authority requires no title.

The series moves fluidly between procedural casework and the complicated lives of its ensemble cast. Loyalties shift, relationships form and fracture, and institutional pressures bear down on people already stretched thin. Real social tensions are present throughout, not as backdrop, but as the substance of the drama itself.

Winner of the MiM Award for Best Daily Series (2021).