So here we go then. The award-winning Happy Valley – written by the excellent Sally Wainwright and starring Sarah Lancashire, who put in an an arguably career-defining shift in series one – is back for a second, eagerly awaited six-episode run. That first series was just a brutal battle royale between local copper Catherine Cawood (Lancashire) and her nemesis Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton), and touched on themes of family and lost identity. I’ll be honest, I didn’t love it to begin with but Wainwright did a skilful job of playing out the initial kidnap story until only two people were left standing – Cawood and Royce, who had been like two prizefighters eyeing each other up and sparring up until the explosive finale. Now, with Royce behind bars, I was eager to see how Cawood and her story would continue.
NB: I’ll be talking about the action and the plot, so there will be spoilers in them thar hills. Continue reading Review: Happy Valley (S1 E1/6), Tuesday 9th February, BBC1
Sadly, I missed the screening for Line Of Duty last night, but thankfully the BBC has released a first-look trailer for the third series, which starts this spring (probably next month) on BBC2. Jed Mercurio’s taut coppers-investigating-coppers series has proved a huge hit, with each series seeming to get get better as they tick by. Series two will be long remembered for the incredible, intense and loooong-take interview scenes with Keeley Hawes, Vicky McClure and Martin Compston. So what have we got to look forward to in series three? The trailer is after the jump. 
With Penguin firmly in the grip of sinister Theo Galavan, and Jim Gordon not yet aware of his villainy, Gotham City seems set for a takeover – but there’s a new criminal on the block in the form of arsonist Firefly, and she (yes, she) presents a more immediate danger. 
The Killing Times 