What to Expect When You’re Expecting Catherine Cookson

So, before we begin dissecting individual episodes, there are some things we need to talk about. They are not spoilers, per se; that would imply that knowing about them spoils how the plot will go, which implies that there is any plot to begin with, which is very sweet of you to think but not really so much what Catherine Cookson was good at. So these aren’t so much spoilers as they are ingredients; combining them in different ways produces different kinds of cookies in an unsurprising but delicious process. Please be warned; some of Catherine’s favorite tropes are totally skeevy. I’ll label the episodes that have nasty goings-on, so those who would rather not deal can just skip. On to the tropes! Class Issues: Universal theme that more or less singlehandedly pilots the plot of every single one of these suckers. I have not seen a Cookson miniseries with fewer than three social classes in the mix. If she had a primary obsession, it would be this. Illegitimate Bairns: If she had a secondary… Read more »