Happy Valley season 3 WILL happen, but not for a long time

For those looking for a Happy Valley season 3 anytime soon, we come bearing some bad news: You’ll be waiting a while to see Catherine Cawood back in action. On the flip side, the good news we have for you is that we do know that there is potential for something more with the series in the future. That is certainly not a sentiment that you’re getting with other shows like Sherlock or Luther at the moment which are more of the attitude of “we will do more if we feel like it”.

Speaking recently with the Radio Times, show executive producer Nicole Shindler made it clear that the drama, written by Sally Wainwright and starring the brilliant Sarah Lancashire, remains on a hiatus while Wainwright works on another project. However, there will be a time in which new episodes are eventually cultivated:

“We are working on a new idea for Sally for BBC1 which will be next year so the earliest Happy Valley would be would be towards the end of 2018 I would suspect.

“She won’t write the [Happy Valley] scripts for some time but Sally’s determined to do it, Sarah’s determined to do it.”

Shindler also makes it clear that, for the time being, there is not even a precise idea that Wainwright has for the project, and that could take some further time in order to properly develop:

“Sally is thinking about a story and the story she is thinking about literally needs time. Because if you look at the characters that are left, there is Sarah, there is James Norton and there is a young boy, who the minute he turns into a teenager it becomes a much more interesting story. 

“She doesn’t know what the story is yet. She is mulling it in her head but we are thinking about giving it a bit of space in story terms.”

While it’s frustrating to have to wait so long to see more Happy Valley, in so many ways it’s for the best given that it does help to actually ensure that when the show comes back, it will be doing so with a really solid idea. Having sporadic seasons does help on some level to reduce creative atrophy; it keeps everyone refreshed, and that’s a good thing since these are creative people who like to take on different projects. When it does eventually return, it’s easy to anticipate that it will be all sorts of devastating and brilliant at the same time; after all, isn’t this the typical Happy Valley way?

Photo: BBC One