The Guardian view on Mr Bates vs the Post Office: Britain needs more state-of-the-nation TV

‘The most important British TV drama for a generation was made on a relatively shoestring budget, and only after an agreement by Toby Jones and other cast members to accept below market-rate levels of pay.’ Photograph: ITV

The extraordinary success and political impact of ITV’s Mr Bates vs the Post Office – unforeseen even by the dedicated team that spent three years making it – has quickly become a global media story. The New York Times, for example, devoted a long feature to the drama that “achieved more in one week than investigative journalists and politicians in more than a decade”.

Such recognition is of course richly deserved. But in the streaming era, when international appeal has become the supreme criterion for investment in series such as The Crown, it is worth noting that this was a peculiarly and importantly domestic kind of televisual triumph. The four-part series went out on a terrestrial channel in the primetime 9pm slot, and it was aimed specifically at the collective conscience of the British public – more than 10 million of whom were watching by the final episode. Pointing out that she felt “under no pressure to appeal to an international audience”, the show’s writer, Gwyneth Hughes, has suggested: “That’s the crucial thing. This is a really British story, very British people.”