HAPPY VALLEY
Netflix, Check local listings
SERIES PREMIERE: Here’s a new Netflix Original series, produced by the BBC, that arrives today with a lot less fanfare than the usual Netflix offering – but it’s well worth seeking out and sampling. Shown in the U.K. earlier this year, the six-episode drama series stars Sarah Lancashire as Catherine Cawood, a uniformed police sergeant in a small valley town in Yorkshire. It may be setting expectations too high to compare Happy Valley to Helen Mirren’s groundbreaking role in Prime Suspect, but there definitely are parallels here, especially in the way we get to know her home life, and personal travails, as much as we do her workplace problems and persistent, intuitive investigative work. The strength of Happy Valley is that it presents fully drawn portraits of all its key characters, not just the central protagonist. Try one episode, and I’m betting you’ll stay for all six -- all of which are available immediately.