Top X: Television (#1, Happy Valley) 📺

My #1 viewing buddy (humans aside).

…the “X” is both the number 10, which I’ll try to stick to, but also a variable “x” because like all nerds it’s almost impossible to restrain me to even double-digit lists of favourites. 🤓

Books and enacted stories were my first loves, but I was under three years old when I also informed my parents that “TV [was] my hobby” – and this after they had convinced my brother and I that the knob on our set was broken, so we could only get the not-for-profit educational station.  (No regrets – Polkaroo for life!)

So here, because absolutely nobody asked me to (unlike the magnificent Guy Vanderhaeghe 😊), is the start of a list of my own top “ten,” “grown-up” TV shows, or groups of shows (see?  I’ve already cheated!) in the English language.

#1: Happy Valley

As with songs, I can label the #1, but the rest are a 9-way (or 100-way, really) tie for secondish place.  Start to finish, Happy Valley is for me the best storytelling ever made (in English) for television.

Sergeant Catherine Cawood, protagonist of Happy Valley. (Image: BBC1)

Sally Wainwright, the creator and showrunner, is an undisputed genius.  She herself wondered, early on in her career, why she was in the Coronation Street writers’ room – a quiet presence in a place “dominated by the loudest voices, the biggest smells” – until she realised that it was because her stories were just that good.

They’re also dark, and they’re funny.  Dark humour is the gold standard for me, and I am never more satisfied, more transgressively delighted and/or relieved, than when I laugh in the middle of something that doesn’t shy away from the dark stuff.  It’s one of the reasons that Anora was so good and deserves its Oscar win.

Other ways in which Happy Valley is perfection: outstanding acting (another Anora stand-out), impeccable dialogue, a flawed, brave and utterly loveable hero, fully realised secondary characters who both fail and grow, a gorgeous setting that does its job (building the world and mood, contributing to the plot, serving up a feast for our eyes), heavy irony, flawless pacing – so, gut-wrenching dramatic peaks and no boring bits, but enough quiet room for us to breathe…

My favourite moment in TV happens in this show, but I won’t spoil it, because my character arc also includes some (slow, imperfect) growth and I try not to do that any more. 😄

A masterpiece.  You should watch it, but you probably already have!