There’s a valedictory feel to this year’s Bafta TV nominations. Nineteen slots are shared by three drama series – The Crown, Happy Valley, and Succession – for their final seasons (at least unless Netflix lures the creators of the Windsors fiction back for an epilogue involving hospitalisations and doctored photos).
Happy Valley and Succession happily left at the height of their success, as acknowledged by creators Sally Wainwright and Jesse Armstrong competing in the writing category. The omission of The Crown’s Peter Morgan suggests he took his eye off the keyboard in a finale that brought back a ghost Diana in scenes that may leave Bafta thankful there is no TV equivalent of the Golden Raspberry Awards for bad content, which shadows the Oscars. The royal drama scoring so highly in the Craft awards (Costume, Make-Up, Hair etc) fairly reflects a sense that its visual production values maintained quality longer than the scripts.
