Not so HAPPY VALLEY

I don't really watch TV these days, and yet strangely I am watching more quality television shows than I ever have.

 To make sense of that let me explain -  I never watch TV as it's broadcast, and tend to catch up on shows via DVD or streaming services like Netflix.

 Because of this I'm always behind but this has the advantage of me being able to binge on entire seasons and be far more selective with my viewing. For instance last year I watched every season of Breaking Bad, back to back over a three week period - and I doubt if the show would have had the same effect had I watched it on a weekly basis and then waited several months between seasons. When you watch entire story arcs over a short period you can better appreciate the way a story has been structured, the flaws though also become evident. Quite often I'll start a show and give up after a season or two, especially if the show runs out of steam but that's getting rare these days especially as I tend to gravitate towards shows that have gathered critical acclaim.

James Norton - best screen psycho in many a year

There are times though when I will pick on a show out of curiosity and discover an absolute gem. One such case was the six part, 2014 BBC crime thriller, Happy Valley. It was only that I saw the entire series on DVD in Tesco for a measly £7 that I took the plunge. I would never have picked up this show otherwise - after all it stars one time Coronation Street actress, Sarah Lancashire (an actress I associate with gentle TV drama designed for housewives) and simply didn't seem like the sort of show I'd enjoy.

 Still it was a crime drama, the disc was cheap and so I placed it in the player - I fully expected a twee crime drama, a cross between Juliet Bravo and Midsummer Murders  but what I got was a gritty and grim thriller, a kind of British Fargo but with the humour replaced with genuine nail biting tension.

Written by Sally Wainwright who also directed the pulse pounding fourth episode, Happy Valley centres on a group of people who find themselves involved in events they are unable to control. The initial trigger is accountant, Kevin Weatherhill who annoyed with his boss over his refusal of a pay rise mentions the idea of a kidnap to local drug dealer, Ashley Cowgill. Wetherhill dreampt up the idea on a whim after discovering Cowgill dealt drugs and from there things spiral out of control. First Cowgill enlists two of his workers, Lewis Whippey and Tommy Lee Royce. The latter character is played by James Norton and he gives us a performance of true depth and in doing so creates one of the most memorable screen psychos of all time.

It's all gritty stuff - opening with a theme song from the excellent Jake Bugg it soon becomes clear that this is a thriller with teeth, and boy does it bite.

It's an extemely violent show, unusually so for the BBC but the violence is justified and the effects of all this is explored in depth with the complex, well realised characters. I watched all six episodes over a two nights and although episodes five and six seemed like an epilogue that could have been tightened up into one episode the show kept my attention throughout. Still I suppose it is the kidnapping that drives the plot and once that was concluded at the climax of episode four, the pace slowed down considerably; almost feeling that the final two episodes were made to stretch the show out to six episodes to fit better into television scheduales.


That said this is a brilliant series that anyone who likes crime thrillers needs to catch up on. Sarah Lancashire's performance is absolutely extraordinary and the rest of the cast are uniformly excellent.

They do make em like that any-more... or at least they try

The original Team

2005's re-imagined Kojak may have only lasted the one season, but the all new Hawaii Five O's been a success for CBS and next month will see the return of yet another classic TV cop, or rather a new take on yet another classic TV cop when Blair Underwood becomes the paralysed detective, Ironside.

Mind you Kojak is far from dead and Vin Diesel is to play the bald cop for a big screen version of the iconic show. There's also stirrings of another take on both Starsky and Hutch and Macmillan and Wife.

Of course Starsky and Hutch's has already spawned a successful 2004 movie, but most fans will agree that the movie, whilst having some good moments, wasn't a patch on the original TV series.

"All new characters, a new city, new texture, new storytelling, new audience,''  Blair Underwood talking about the all new Ironside.

The new Ironside

In fact such is the nostalgia for the cop shows of the past that TV and movie bosses feel they are onto a good thing by rebooting that which worked in the past. After all, the logic goes, if it was a hit once then there is no reason why it can't be again. This doesn't always pan out - think of the 2009 version of The Prisoner and the dismal 1998 big screen version of the much loved The Avengers - that's John Steed and not Captain America. And remember the remakes of both The Bionic Woman and Knight Rider were major disappointments. And TV remakes of Charley's Angels and The Rockford Files seemed to have stalled at pilot stage.

It remains to be be seen whether the new Ironside will sink or swim but one thing that is certain is that TV bosses will continue to revive much loved TV shows in the hope of once again striking gold.

It's a jungle out there...

Yeah I know it's light and fluffy but I've become addicted to the TV crime series, Monk - I'd never seen the show on the original run  but after picking up the box set of season one on an impulse I've found myself adding seasons two to six to my collection, and as soon as I've got through these (I'm currently half way through season four) I'll be completing my collection with seasons 7 and 8. A visit to the Monk Wiki page tells me there were 125 episodes in total and that the show ended in 2009. I can't get enough of this show and even the loss of the Sharona character in the middle of season three could not put me off the show. I did think the show lost something when Sharona (Betty Schram) who played Monk's assistant cum nurse left but after a few episodes I was able to accept her replacement Natalie (Traylor Howard) as the new sidekick to the dysfunctional detective, Adrian Monk.

The much missed Sharona

For those of you not familiar with the show (and there can't be many of you) Monk is a genius detective, often referred to as being, like Sherlock Holmes, which is hardly an original premise since the spawn of Holmes are many, but Monk's twist is that he's suffering from OCD or obsessive compulsive disorder. Apparantly he's always been obsessive but after the murder of his wife, Trudy (an occurrence that happened before the show started) he's gotten worse and his phoibias, of which there are many, have come to the fore. He fears all the usual things - heights, spiders, enclosed spaces - and also a few that are decidedly unusual - milk, puppets and feet. He's been struck off the police force and now makes a living by hiring himself out as a consultant to the San Francisco police force when they find themselves stumped with a particularly baffling case.

There is much humour gained from Monk's obsessions - one episode found Monk reacting quickly by picking up a grenade that had just been tossed through a window and throwing it into a refrigerator, however he then opened the fridge again to make sure the grenade is standing upright before then closing the door and....Boom! In fact Monk is often tampering with evidence so that it all fits into his neat, well ordered idea of the world.

The crimes Monk investigates and usually baffling - quite often variations of the traditional locked room mystery. One particularly intriguing episode saw Monk have to prove how a man could carry out several bombing attacks while laying in a coma, another saw a billionaire Bill Gates'alike computer genius suddenly turn to mugging, and yet another saw a man shot seemingly by his pet chimpanzee. And in one episode Monk even had to clear country singer, Willie Nelson of murder. The denouncement of each story is usually perfectly logical although they do on times stretch credibility. Not that it matters since it is the portrayal of Mr Monk by character actor Tony Shalhoub that makes the show so compelling. Of course the strong supporting cast also helps with the chemistry between Shalhoub and Ted Levine as the police captain is a particular highlight.

According to the Wiki page for the series the plots follow one or other of the following formats:

• The killer is known, and how the crime was committed is known. The episode is spent trying to find evidence to arrest that person, and these episodes are hence patterned similarly to many episodes of Columbo.
• Monk knows who the killer is, and knows what the motive is, but the killer has a seemingly air-tight alibi. The episode is spent trying to break that alibi and find out how the killer did it.
• In a number of episodes, the plot involves trying to find out the killer, how the murder was done, and why.
• In some episodes, the killer's M.O. is known, but not who did it or why.

I've still got a few more seasons to go and apparently the finale will see Monk finally solve the mystery of his wife's murder and also bring both of Monk's assistants Natalie and Sherona together on screen. I'm looking forward to getting to that one but in the meantime I've got some great viewing to get through.

If you've never seen this show then catch up with it on the re-runs. It's certain to become a favourite. It's drama, it's comedy and contains some truly beautiful moments

Take that gun out of my ear officer

At the moment I'm up to my neck in perps, maverick cops and drug hauls - it's all happening here in preparation for the TV Cops Big Weekend which kicks off tomorrow - book em!

Kojak - one for the morgue

This is actually the third episode on the season one box set. It was directed by a young Richard Donner. This episode continues the grim and realistic style of the first season - the lollypops have yet to make an appearance and at no point does Kojak utter the line, "Who love ya Baby?" Note - the Lollypop actually made its debut in the season one episode Dark Sunday (episode 8) when Kojak decides to give up smoking and uses the treat as a substitute.

The plot sees an attempted mob assassination go wrong with the target escaping and and old lady killed.

"One for the hospital and one for the morgue." Kojak says and stares directly past the camera. It's an effective moment in what is another excellent episode, that shows New York as a dangerous and dirty place - a concrete jungle full of crooks, pimps, pushers and mobsters.

US based readers can watch the full episode HERE - the rest of us will have to buy the box set or try one of those dodgy download sights. Though the latter option is not recommended and is most definitely illegal.

If you want to know more about the various TV Cops who have appeared throughout the years then the Archive is the place to be during the first weekend in June which will be our TV Cops weekend - we have a great list of guest bloggers for your entertainment - already confirmed are James Reasoner, Ian Dickerson, Lance Howard and Evan (Dave) Lewis and you can bet there'll be more lovely people here to tell you about their favourite TV cop shows. We'll be covering everything from The Rockford Files to Starsky and Hutch, from Dragnet to Magnum, from Hill Street Blues to Highway Patrol and pretty much everything in between. We'll also have the Archive's list of the ten coolest TV Cops and much much more.

Be here or be square, as they used to say.

A DECADE OF COPS AND ROBBERS

I caught the latest episode of the BBC's Ashes to Ashes - the third series of the follow up show to the excellent Life on Mars, and I was dismayed to discover how poor the show is. Mind you I don't think Ashes was ever going to work - for one thing the time travel storyline didn't really gell in Life on Mars and we are expected to swallow the premise that it has happened again to someone else a decade later. Maybe I'm being unfair as I've long lost interest in Ashes to Ashes but I think a big mistake was made following Life on Mars - what they should have done, in my opinion, is forget the time travel element and simply made a straight forward 1970's set cop show using the character of Gene Hunt.

Life on Mars did, after all, come about because the writers wanted to make a show something like The Sweeney - the time travel element was an inspired after thought and allowed the show to explore the differences between the 1970's and this politically correct world.

Besides 1970's cop shows were mostly excellent and today they bask in retro-cool.

The UK had The Sweeney of course (probably the best cop show ever made) starring John Thaw and Dennis Waterman - all flared trousers, kipper ties, loose cigarettes and, perhaps for the first time, a realistic view of then modern policing. The stories had a moral ambiguity that makes the show still topical today. There were four series and two spin off movies and all are available in one form or another.

But for the entire decade there were scores of cops dominating TV screens - the previous decade had seen the episodic western replaced in popularity by the cop and now rather than watch our heroes ride the range, we watched then cruise around in their Ford Torinos or battered station wagons. Cops were everywhere - professionals, amateurs and seedy private detectives.

Remember Beretta - one of the most off-beat cops to patrol the streets of the small screen. The character, played by Robert Blake - it was actually based on an earlier NBC series, Toma which was based on the real life exploits of New Jersey cop David Toma. Beretta ran from 1975-1978.

Starskey and Hutch was a massive hit during the decade, huge in much of Europe as well as its native USA. There was a ninety minute pilot movie followed by 92 episodes. These days the show is primarily remembered as an action comedy but the it is forgotten how hard hitting the series was; indeed it had to be toned down after complaints. The excellent first season episode, The Fix was not originally shown on UK screens after it was deemed too violent. And even today the first two seasons are well worth viewing and provide some excellent drama. Shame, it kinda got silly for the final two seasons.

In 1977, a rising concern about violence on TV, along with Paul Glaser's own concerns about the level of violence in Starskey and Hutch, forced the screenplay writers to cut down on violent action scenes and to employ more romantic and socially themed episodes, and play up the "buddy buddy" aspect of the show's leads even more so. At the same time, the lead actors, Glaser in particular, became jaded with the general theme of Starsky and Hutch. These and other factors contributed to the fading popularity of the series. And of course David Soul wanted to become a rock star dude but we forgive him for Silver Lady and we really don't give up on him, -er, baby


Charlie's Angels - was all glamour and no real substance (plenty of bust shots, though) but it was hugely successful - Many a schoolboy considered Farrah Fawcett, the perfect woman. It ran from 1976 - 1981, went through several cast changes, and was indeed one of the most successful shows of the decade. And of course there have been the big screen versions.

Another big cop show of the decade was, The Streets of San Francisco - what set this apart from many shows was the quality of the cast. Karl Malden was already an acting legend when he took on the role of Mike Stone and Michael Douglas showed that he had inherited the performance skills of his famous father, Kirk. There were five seasons, 120 episodes in total, and the series is another that has survived well and is still enjoyed today.

There were scores of other popular cop (the term cop used generically and including amateur sleuths) shows, some good and some not so good - Kojak, Cannon, Ironside, Macmillan and Wife, Serpico, Columbo, McCloud, S.W.A.T - to name but a few of the better ones.

It would be impossible to include every show in a post such as this but one particular favourite I want to talk about is, The Rockford Files. The show ran from 1974 - 1980 and is still show in syndication all around the world. The 6ft 3inches tall James Garner played the part of Jim Rockford, a PI who owed much to Chandler's laid back Phillip Marlowe as well as Garner's earlier character, Brett Maverick. Indeed there are plans for a remake of the series with Dermont Mulroney in the part of Jim Rockford.

The Rockford Files is in a class of its own - each of the episodes in the six seasons are mostly excellent and there were several Rockford Files reunion movies made which aired between 1994-1999.

'People write asking me if my limp is part of the Rockford character, ' Garner told an interviewer for the 1979 TV detectives annual. ' I wish it were. I smashed both legs playing football in school and I've had two operations on each knee. I think the right one is held together by cottage cheese.'

With the 80's the cops shows continued but became more glitzy - Heart to Heart, Miami Vice and T.J. Hooker anyone. And the trend would continue until a little show called Hill Street Blues turned everything around and spawned modern shows such as The Wire and all those C.S.I'S.

Maybe the 1970's cop shows were not always the most realistic portrayal of life as a law enforcer and maybe they were sometimes OTT, but that don't matter. The 1970's was the decade of the cop show so what the heck is Gene Hunt and the Ashes to Ashes lot doing messing about in the 1980's?

Strung out in heaven's high, hitting an all time low, indeed!