“I have never seen a character quite like Catherine Cawood on TV”

My TV obsession of 2023 began last Christmas while staying with my family in Ireland. My parents’ house is of a linear persuasion, so when Call the Midwife ended and no one changed over, on came the show by which I would judge all other dramas this year.  

I was hooked by Happy Valley; sitting down every Sunday night to watch it and becoming ever more irrationally cross that no one had told me about this phenomenal show (To caveat: I missed the first two series of it because I was, to all intents and purposes, living under a rock). 

It was about midway through the third series that I thought ‘maybe these characters aren’t supposed to be mysteries to me’ and so I quickly devoured series one and two, and Happy Valley is retroactively my show of the year for 2014 and 2016.  

I have never seen a character quite like Catherine Cawood on TV: quick-witted, fiercely protective but also hotheaded and unpredictable. The scene between herself and Clare in the cafe is a masterclass in acting, writing and directing, creating one of the tensest scenes on telly this year. Happy Valley proves to me that there is still something to be said for linear TV.  

Honourable mentions: As I predicted last year, The Last of Us broke the video game curse but I didn’t foresee it delivering the most poignant singular episode of TV this year with Bill and Frank’s love story nor that Linda Ronstadt would become one of my top artists on Spotify.

Dispatches’ Russell Brand: In Plain Sight shone a light on an not-too-distant era of TV and the behaviours that were enabled and with which we must still reckon, while also serving as a reminder of the power of fearless investigative journalism.  

  • Marian McHugh is a reporter, Broadcast

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Broadcast’s shows of the year