Happy Valley. I don’t get it

[BillyNighysWife]

It seems everyone thinks Happy Valley is the best thing ever. I started watching series 1 recently to find out what all the fuss was about. I found it quite watchable but I really don’t think it’s great. It seems to be full of cliches about people. Despite its dark subject matter there is a cloying, mediocre English cosiness about it. Sarah Lancashire is good and as an older woman myself it’s great to see older women as main characters in big narratives. But there have been great, strong women in soaps for decades. What is special about her character and what she does in HV? I don’t get it.

It seems to be very similar to Mare of Easttown, except that was better.

Does anyone agree with me or am I on own with my strange opinion?

turnipash I know you addressed that to OP, sorry, the embedded quote is misleading, apols.

I live in the area of HV. We do leave our doors open apart from when we go to bed, we don't make appointments to visit relatives and friends, we are down to earth, there are plenty of strong women, we'll talk to anyone even in the doctors waiting room or the bus stop, neighbors know and look out for each other

@WildRosie I'm not keen on tv. I mainly share the sofa with DH while he watches. All three you mentioned enthralled me. I'm hard to please with TV, but they were gaspingly dramatic.

WASH YOUR MOUTH OUT

Yes, love the American Office - rewatched it 3 times over the years. The English version was good but the characters weren't so well formed I felt

Leaving your doors open, talking to people at bus stops blah blah. It’s such a generalisation. HV lays on a lot of that thickly.

I don’t recognise this picture of HV. There are nods to it, as well as the lentil-eating tendencies in Hebden Bridge. But in HV we see lots of disaffected teens, petty crime, squalor, poverty, cynicism, alcoholism and so on.

Strong Yorkshire woman Catherine is actually often unlikeable or makes mistakes, especially emotionally.

There is a lot of drug taking and associated crimes in pretty tourist areas. My daughter works in that area.

depth! are we looking at the same programme!

Well, there was nothing cosy about that!!
Bravo 👏👏

Wow!
Extraordinary last scenes. TLR snivelling. Catherine facing him down.

Extraordinary.

If you think the US Office is bad for the love of god don’t want Ghosts. What they did to that show is a travesty.

I love happy valley, it’s cleverly written as well. Little details like Catherine’s scarf being in the same wool as Claire’s jumper so you know she’d knitted it for her because that’s their bond. And as much as they argue she loves her. The conversations are so normal, Catherine interrupting Ryan’s tea, asking what he’s having mid argument and when he replies ‘stew’ says ‘ah that’ll be alright then’.

loved every moment of it. Brilliantly acted and wonderfully observed.

Don't really get what's cosy about someone's daughter being raped and then committing suicide. And the relationship between the sisters is much more nuanced than you imply. SL's character clearly doesn't like everyone. In fact many other characters, including often her sister, ex-husband's new wife, even her own grandson often get on her tits.

I don't think she's direct because she's northern. I think she's direct because that's how she survives. There's obviously a part of her that's broken after her daughter's death and there are times she nearly breaks down, like when she leaves the cafe after finding out about Ryan seeing TLR in prison, and somehow forces herself to square her shoulders and keep going. Her sister is more obviously vulnerable but at times you can see the burden of CC in having to keep strong for everyone.

And it seems like those who prefer the US office 😵, also don't like HV. No accounting for taste!

I found final Happy Valley boring and bit predictable. As usual, subtitles on for Sarah L's mumbling and her grimly stomping around with that stone face was tedious, in my opinion. What acting from James Norton. I momentarily felt sorry for this murdering rapist one minute, and horrified next. Walking out of her leaving do was very Prime Suspect. But overall, stupendous cast

Series 1 and 2 were both entertaining and thought-provoking on multiple levels, raising questions of sociology, politics, and human interaction.

Series 3, in contrast, seemed to have been designed with the www.gov.uk guidance for web page content in mind, i.e. "Write for people who have a reading age of nine years". Anodyne, bland, twee and not intellectually meaningful.

In other words, the series has been dumbed-down BBC-style, despite the outstanding skills of Sally Wainwright.

Disappointing.

Sarah Lancashire's attempt,long ago, at a Manchester accent, as Raquel was a lot more successful than her Calder Valley one here.
I could have overlooked the cliches in the series, if she had perhaps just stuck with the probably generic northern one the actress uses in real life.
The character's not quite mastered it, dialogue jarred on my ear too much to make me stick with the series.

The last few posts sound like they have been written by a London centric TV critic. Brian Sewell anyone?

I thought all three series were excellent. Brilliantly written and acted. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but badly done it is not.

I live in the Calder Valley and thought she nailed it..... both accent and dialogue 🤷🏼‍♀️

And it seems like those who prefer the US office 😵, also don't like HV. No accounting for taste!

Haha the US office is not a patch on the UK one. The cringe factor is THE point of the whole thing.

Like HV the characters ring true, I've worked in offices like that.

OP joined MN to share her dislike of HV with us.

I do understand when someone is thrown off by an actor's accent not being quite accurate. I'm from NI and we've been subjected to some very, very dodgy renditions of a Belfast accent. But if someone manages to get the Northern Irish aspect of it broadly right and consistent, I can't get myself too worked up about whether it sounds like a specifically Belfast accent. If it veers all over the place, then that can be problematic.

Final episode wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but enjoyed it never the less. And I hid behind a pillow for a lot of it.
would be interested to hear what Sarah wainwright had originally written

Broadchurch, series one excellent, the rest pretty awful.
Line Of Duty. Good in parts. Terrible reveal of H.
Happy Valley. Fantastic.

I was thinking about this thread earlier in relation to all the media hype I've read around this series.

Imo HV doesn't play on its 'northern-ness', it just happens to be a drama set in a specific area and the issues, accents, dialogue and characters reflect that.

However, the media hype around the show really bigs up the northern/Yorkshire aspect. It's a media issue not a HV issue!!

I agree, I’ve tried to get into it three times and can’t.

Me too. I binge watched the whole lot. One of the best things I've ever seen. Missed it when it finished.