Happy Valley writer Sally Wainwright rues ITV's “sad” decision to axe her Suranne Jones drama Unforgiven
The Bafta-winning scriptwriter addresses the “rubbish” idea in TV circles that a second series is inherently "risky"
Writer Sally Wainwright enjoyed stellar success with her Bafta-winning BBC1 police drama Happy Valley, which is returning this week for a second series with Sarah Lancashire once again in the lead role as tough cop Catherine Cawood.
But Wainwright has revealed her disappointment over the failure of another project of hers – ITV's Suranne Jones drama Unforgiven – to win a second series.
Wainwright wanted to make another run of the three-part 2009 drama in which Jones played Ruth Slater, a woman who starts the story having been released from prison on licence after she killed two police officers as a teenager. However ITV decided not to give her another go and the decision clearly still rankles.
In an interview for Happy Valley Wainwright said: “I never plan to write one series of anything. You only write one series if it’s not successful, and you don’t get recommissioned – this is telly, not film. You love your characters and you want to spend more time with them. I wanted to do a second series of Unforgiven, I wanted to follow what Ruth did next, and ITV said no even though it was massively successful. I still think that was a sad decision.
“There’s a thing at the moment that doing a second series is risky, but I think that’s rubbish. A second series of a successful show is often even better than the first series. There’s a confidence and assuredness with a second series from everyone involved. It’s when shows get into fifth, sixth, seventh series that the rot tends to set in.”
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Unforgiven performed well in the ratings, debuting with more than 7 million viewers for its opening episode. It also won the Best Drama Series or Serial prize at the 2009 Royal Television Society Programme Awards.
Suranne Jones’ co-stars were Siobhan Finneran, Peter Davison, Douglas Hodge, Jemma Redgrave, Jack Deam, Matthew McNulty and Will Mellor.
Happy Valley returns to BBC1 on Tuesday February 9 at 9pm
