It’s not often that a television show can come back on the air after an absence of seven years and still manage to feel both new and familiar.
But such is the power of Happy Valley that right from the beginning, when Sergeant Catherine Cawood mutters a triumphant “t**t” under her breath after schooling a patronising detective, it was obvious that this crown jewel of British crime dramas had gotten off to a fast start.
There is no denying that Sarah Lancashire shines brightest in the part of Catherine Cawood. She has extended herself with a varied assortment of roles during the break of Happy Valley, but the role that has allowed her to fully shine is that of the earthy career copper Catherine, who is a good lady who is being harassed by Tommy Lee Royce, the worst of the worst.
To the point where the quality of Happy Valley decreases noticeably if she is not present on screen. And there were sections in the opening episode of season three that lapsed into formulaic criminal drama. This episode built up a storyline involving a control freak teacher, a dubious pharmacist, and a band of drug thugs, and it lapsed into this genre during those stretches.
But whether Lancashire is unleashing all of his world-weary wit on the situation or Tommy Lee is staring dead-eyed into the camera, Happy Valley is at its most riveting.
Fair play to James Norton because whatever the antithesis of “scrubs up well” is, Norton nails it. His heartthrob looks distorted into something that is actually disgusting as Tommy Lee works his evil ways. Norton’s portrayal is spot on.
Be on the lookout for a pyrotechnic display since it is inevitable that these two will eventually come face to face.
Catherine’s son Ryan is now a stroppy adolescent, and she is horrified to discover that he has been seen visiting his father Tommy Lee in the nick. As for the tale, well, the world as well as Happy Valley has moved on seven years, and Catherine’s son Ryan is now an adult.
That is not going to end in a positive way.
And despite the passage of time, Yorkshire remains the most drug-addled region in the United Kingdom.
The author Sally Wainwright has a talent for drawing us into people who pulsate with real life, and that talent is the reason why we care about what she writes. When there are occasional lapses into public information pamphleteering — a sentence about the health concerns of prescription medicines sticks out like a sore thumb, for example – it jolts you out of the trance that the dialogue casts.
However, this is a minor caveat because Happy Valley is making a spectacular rebirth, bucking the trend of trash revivals that have been occurring recently.
Happy Valley continues on Sunday at 9pm on BBC One.