Happy Valley, same writer as Scott and Bailey [Poss spoilers - added by MNHQ]

[MorrisZapp]

I thought it was brilliant, although some generational shifts confused me. The lead character played by Sarah Lancashire had a grandson but didn't look old enough.

The company boss had been friends with the accountant's father, that didn't add up did it? Or did I get that wrong.

Great to see the George Costigan and Siobhan Finneran reunited although not onscreen together.

Brilliant writing and simply superb acting I thought, anybody else enjoy it?

Lots of good looking people commit crime. But his looks are of a type. Ie he looks Brideshead Revisited, Bullingdon Club, Jack Wills advert good looking.

It doesn't fit. He looks like he wandered over from the set of Pride and Prejudice and chucked on a donkey jacket.

The actor has played a series of posh types in the past, and he will be relishing the change I don't doubt. He's a bloody good actor. But maybe they should have tried harder to make him look rough as I am not convinced.

He looks like he wandered over from the set of Pride and Prejudice and chucked on a donkey jacket.

That's just what he did do! He was in Death Comes to Pemberley at Christmas. Knew I'd seen him somewhere.

He's a good actor - does 'menace' very well.

Sally Wainwright should be ashamed of herself for writing this drama. And all the women on this thread who find it so "compelling" are making me sick.

Yet you felt compelled to come on here and berate others?

Do fuck off then and watch some froth.

Are good looking young men not psychopaths and rapists?

yes if course they can be as well. And they can also be skanky looking. Especially if just out of prison and from that background. And by background I don't mean a class thing. I agree with Morris ^

I think the actor playing tommy is great. You would expect him to be uglier, rougher, skankier... The stereotypical freak. But I like they've used a relatively normal/good looking young man, someone you'd think might be a bit of a charmer. Makes him all the more scary for me.

Sally Wainwright should be ashamed of herself for writing this drama. And all the women on this thread who find it so "compelling" are making me sick

I don't think SW should be ashamed for writing it, quite the opposite. As will no doubt be echoed at the next BAFTAs

If you don't like it don't watch it, it's that simple

And if my opinion makes you sick - well that's your problem to deal with. So go and deal with it.

Morris So you're saying that he looks too posh to convince? I grew up in an area not dissimilar to the one depicted in H.V. There were plenty of men there up to no good who had the same look and I'm sure they're in similar areas now.

I'm well fed up with violence to females for titillation.

Please feel free to point those scenes out, Nigella.

I think the Tommy character is perfectly cast, don't think he needs to look "skankier" he is clearly criminally intelligent as well as brutal and has no conscience. The other lad, Lewis (?) isn't wildly skanky either and neither is Ashley.

Nice to know that my opinions make someone sick.

If you don't like it don't watch it, it's that simple

It's not that simple. Whether I watch it or not, it's still out there and it's both depressing and horrifying that women are still being depicted in this way and that you lot are enjoying watching women being degraded and beaten. It's gratuitous; bad enough a young woman being kidnapped but Sally Wainwright has decided she will be raped and drugged. As a previous poster said, why couldn't the kidnap victim be a son? My guess isit wouldn't be so compelling to the majority of people to have a terrified young man sodomised and drugged for your viewing pleasure.

Every woman on the show is a victim - the mother of the kidnapped girl even has terminal cancer! And we knew Catherine's daughter hanged herself - why do we have to have glimpses of the dead girl hanging from a noose?

I don't care if it wins any Baftas - it should never have been made.

everlong so sorry to hear about your child. I agree 100% with everything you have said in your post, my DH suffers from PTSD it causes terrible nightmares and flashbacks. The scene involving the policewoman being run over was a bit close to home for him, but as you have said this is what happens, this is what people male or female have to deal with.

Violence is appalling whatever the gender of the person on the receiving end of it. There are plenty of films and TV series depicting violence by males on males, there was a police drama on the BBC a couple of years ago (can't remember what it was called, sorry) where a male policeman was violently beaten and killed by having a TV smashed on his head, that was equally as disturbing as the violence in Happy Valley.

No-one on this thread is enjoying the violence inflicted on anyone, which proves that we are not titillated or de-sensitised to it, we do, however, believe it could and does happen.

I disagree that every woman on the show is a victim.

I think one thing that Sally Wainwright (who presumably had a say in casting) is doing is confounding viewers’ expectations – the handsome rapist, drug-taking ex-con who doesn’t look as if he needs a good wash, and the ‘good’ wife and mother who’s disabled and who thinks nothing of spending blood money. And it works because it’s all entirely plausible.

From The Telegraph today:-

Happy Valley is the hit BBC drama starring Sarah Lancashire as Catherine Cawood, a tough but tormented police officer whose daughter has committed suicide after being raped. Tonight viewers will find out what has happened to Cawood, who was left for dead in the last episode after a beating by her daughter’s attacker.
The show’s writer, Sally Wainwright, was forced at the weekend to defend Happy Valley from accusations of misogyny.
Vivienne Pattison of Mediawatch-UK said that “this kind of graphic violence dehumanises us. Studies have shown watching it can stunt your emotional growth.”
Which is odd given that most people were emotionally a bit traumatised by last week’s episode.
Still, commentators have complained that men are never subjected to this kind of brutality in drama. It’s always women having their heads stoved in or their bodies tortured. But as Wainwright said on Sunday , “a lot of violence in real life is against women”.
I know it’s fashionable now to be outraged by absolutely everything, but have any of Happy Valley’s critics actually watched the programme properly?
Cawood is one of the strongest females we have seen on television since Helen Mirren played Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect. Meanwhile, every single man in the show is either weak, pathetic or plain evil.
If anyone group of people should be getting upset about their depiction in Happy Valley, then it’s the blokes.

I don't care if it wins any Baftas - it should never have been made

Oh give over

Probably half of the stuff on TV/Film shouldn't have ever been released then. Stay away from it if it bothers you.

Exit perfect summary. I still think there are plenty of dramas and films were men are subjected to brutality and violence by other men.

Btw, everytime I see your name I am transported back to English Lit classes studying that play (not one of Shakepeare's finest in my view)!!

TONIGHTS THE NIGHT

And yes, I do think TLR is too posh. He looks like Boris Johnson.

and the men who are responsible for that everlong come from all walks of life.

Having seen boris johnson several times in the supermarket at close range I can say definitively that this actor looks nothing like boris johnson who looks a bit like a pig in a wig.