GOORAMA!

There’s no doubt that the modern British crime drama is booming, but we didn’t see this one coming at all: Happy Valley, the grim, six-episode kidnap thriller whose finale was broadcast Tuesday night in the UK, has been so instantly and wildly popular that the hashtag #HappyValley was the no. 1 global trending topic on Twitter.

But unless you’re reading this from the UK, you can’t watch it — which, in this age of everything-on-demand, is … kind of maddening. And giving us entitlement feelings.

The show stars Sarah Lancashire as Yorkshire police sergeant Catherine Cawood, a divorced, 47-year-old policewoman who lives with her recovering-addict sister, but is estranged from much of her family. By all accounts, it’s a harrowing look at violence, murder and rape that stem from the area’s widespread drug problem.

As of this writing, no plans have been announced to broadcast or stream Happy Valley in the U.S. It’s possible that it will be remade for American audiences — like Fox is doing with another homegrown Brit hit Broadchurch — but for now, it’s too early to tell.

What we can tell from a few clips on the BBC’s website is that Lancashire plays a no-nonsense law-enforcement officer and investigator who walks up to trouble and confronts it on a daily basis. Oh, and that we definitely want to see more of her.

British media reports that Happy Valley has attracted well over 6 million weekly viewers, a number that any network drama would be happy with in the U.S., which has nearly five times the population of Great Britain.

Written by playwright and BAFTA-nominated television writer Sally Wainwright, Happy Valley is as much about Cawood’s past and personal life as it is about her work. And to great effect: Critics have positively raved about Lancashire’s performance, as did our Twitter friends across the pond on Tuesday:

In tribute to Catherine Cawood I just stopped and spoke to a female police officer on my high street. #HappyValley

— Matthew Campbell (@MattACampbell) June 3, 2014

Thank you BBC for #HappyValley 5star all round well done to everyone involved brilliant cast. Sarah Lancashire just bloody brilliant

— Scott Walker (@ScottMoves) June 3, 2014

Just watched the last episode of #HappyValley Disturbing. Powerful. Women saving women, physically, emotionally. Impressed

— Helen Mary Jones (@HelenMaryCymru) June 3, 2014

Whether Happy Valley someday hits the U.S. in its native form — à la PBS’s Downton Abbey — or takes the Broadchurch road to a U.S. remake via the BBC, here’s hoping we’ll soon get a look at this instant television phenomenon in one form or another.

window._msla=window.loadScriptAsync||function(src,id){if(document.getElementById(id))return;var js=document.createElement(‘script’);js.id=id;js.src=src;document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0].parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);};
_msla(“//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”,”twitter_jssdk”);

Read more: http://mashable.com/2014/06/03/happy-valley-is-a-huge-trending-tv-hit-that-you-cant-watch/