Happy Valley fans will want to binge "Absolutely sublime" Manchester-set crime drama before it leaves streamer

We know that folks can't get enough of a good police drama, and while new ones are coming out all the time, sometimes you just want to find one with where you can follow the same characters across multiple seasons.

With that in mind, we're recommending Scott & Bailey, the ITV drama that ran for five seasons between 2011 and 2016 with plenty of well-known faces, but there is quite a big catch...

Co-created and written by Happy Valley's Sally Wainwright, the show follows the two titular offices in Manchester as they solve both murders and their own messy personal problems.

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The cast includes three former Coronation Street stars in Suranne Jones, Nicholas Gleaves and Amelia Bullmore (who also serves as one of the writers here), as well as Emmerdale's Danny Miller, Clocking Off's Lesley Sharp, and Green Wing's Pippa Haywood.

Produced by the company behind many of Russell T Davies' big hits, the show ran for 33 episodes on ITV... which is where the catch comes in.

As you'd expect, the show is available on ITVX. However, not every episode is available, including the first five episodes of season 1!

Digital Spy understands that the show recently re-ran on ITV3 and episodes are only available for a 30-day catch-up, rather than a longer-term full box-set upload. You could still start with season 2 and carry on from there, but you'd have to be quick.

Meanwhile, the ITVX Help account previously responded to a fan on X about the other missing episode, season 3 episode 7, to explain the episode was removed "for legal reasons" and "won't be made available".

Sadly the show isn't available on any other streaming service or digital store, but there is the option to buy and own the entire show on DVD.

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Whether you watch the whole thing on DVD or most of it on ITVX, it looks like you're going to be in for a good time. The show has an average score of 97% positive across all its five seasons on Rotten Tomatoes.

One fan called it "absolutely sublime" and a strong recommendation for Happy Valley fans, noting that Bullmore "steals every scene she's in", while others enjoyed the "feminist flare" and "great chemistry".

Scott & Bailey can be (mostly) streamed on ITVX. The whole show is available on DVD.

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Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016. In his time, he's covered a host of live events and interviewed celebrities big and small. A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe also enjoys video games and in particular PlayStation. Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I'm a Fish.