Happy Valley - In einer kleinen Stadt

I've been thoroughly enjoying this dark gritty drama. All the leads are excellent, but Sarah Lancashire as the main police officer with a tragic family history, is outstanding. It started well then just got better and better with each episode and twist of the plot (and screw) having me on the edge of my seat. I've just watched what must be the penultimate episode and it has left me physically shaking - it was that convincing and shocking. It's hard to credit the complaint of mumbling by one reviewer. I can't recall even one line of script I didn't follow and it's usually something that bugs me. I'm so glad I've watched this series, it's got to be one of (if not the) best TV dramas of 2014.

I love how the British do crime shows! So raw and realistic. The main actress is amazing, she does such a good job at being equally scary and sweet. It's got some good twists and shock moments. Definitely worth watching.

I cannot praise this series enough. It has an air of realism about it from its location to the main actors. The lead sergeant Catherine Cawood and her sister are so ordinary, preoccupied with ordinary things, (no trendy,smarmy,clever middle class media interpretations of what ordinary people speak like dialog). Without exception every character is believable. With master classes in acting from the lead, her sister, her grandson and Tommy the maniac. The criminals are believably cruel and stupid in measure. The damaged and unfortunate are portrayed realistically but with compassion. No left wing idealism or right wing coldness that usually invades these type of program. The setting is the bleakest place I've ever seen, a beautiful English valley shrouded in mist, dampness and high rises. The streets and buildings are claustrophobic. Most of all the story is credible, consistent and finely paced. raw emotions are not avoided and dysfunction is everywhere. And yet there's something noble in sergeant Catherine Cawood.

The most intense, well written, well acted crime series I've ever seen on television. For six weeks I've been hooked on a story that uses a police drama as a framework for the human emotions that are at the core of this fantastic series. Steve Pemberton (The League of Gentlemen, Inside No 9) as the self-interested accountant out of his depth when a kidnapping plot goes horribly wrong was brilliant and James Norton was easily one of the best psychopaths I've ever seen in a television drama. There was real depth to his character and I expect he was hated by viewers as much as Joffre in Game of Thrones nonsense police officer. But it was Sarah Lancashire's show all the way as the tough, no-nonsense, but damaged police officer. At first I thought this was going to go the way of the film Fargo, with it's kidnapping-gone-wrong scenario, but by the start of the second episode it was clear that it was going to take a different path. Be warned though, it's dark and unsettling with moments of sudden shocking violence, especially at the end of the fourth episode, where I was left shaking at the sheer intensity of it all. Better than anything American crime dramas have had to offer us over the past year, it was brilliant. Absolutely bloody brilliant!

The fact that Sgt Catherine Cawood is not a real person but a character played by an actress is completely 100% inconceivable. The portrayal is SO real in every aspect. It's real in every mannerism, in the shift between her persona as a private person and police officer, in the way she dresses, the way she wears her hair, her make up, the choices she makes and how she behaves. I've never seen a performance like it in my life. So extremely vulnerable, yet so extremely strong and when push comes to shove so extremely brave and tough. I for one would not want to cross her, for she would surely kick my behind severely, at the same time I sure would want her to talk to if ever I was victimized.

As for the series, both one and two, the plot squeezes the characters so hard that it's sometimes unwatchable because you relate so intensely to the psychological pressures their under, both the good guys and the bad.

An absolute must to watch!