Think About It!: Broadchurch

An English Detective Drama starring both David Tennant and Arthur Darvill?! And it's already been bought by BBC America, long before it aired? What is this all about, then?

Series creator Chris Chibnall claims Broadchurch was a labour of love, he wanted to explore how death would affect a community that mirrored one he had lived in and apparently only four members of the cast knew who the murderer was.

Although much too stylish to be classed as social realism, Broadchurch goes about the very familiar slightly differently. Nothing is original in this weeks story at all, minus the fact that there is only one murder. However the choice to avoid turning itself into a slasher flick and instead focusing on the reactions to this death elevates the show above its suggested mediocrity. It gives the death a lot of weight and power, it's hard, ultimately, to care about a lot of the victims in Police Dramas because just as soon as one is offed, so is another. So when the death is not shown on screen and the episode quickly moves beyond that and into the fallout instead, it's impossible not to be engaged and completely sucked in making for some very compelling drama indeed.

However I can also understand if this is off-putting to a lot of audiences too, the opening episodes plot is one sentence long. A boy is found on a beach, possible suicide, turns out he was strangled, cue a forty-minute crying montage. The opening episode is entirely acting led, we establish the victim and whose lives he was connected too and that is it. It's playing its cards very close to its chest, with all future characters and subplots given fleeting glances only with absolutely nothing properly established or introduced that didn't have a direct link to our victim, Danny. To say this is plot light would be an understatement.

The staginess can sometimes undermine the performances as well. Contrary to pop culture belief, hearing the news that someone close to you has died doesn't leave you immediately responding with a long, powerful speech before breaking down into a fit of tears. When I was told my Mum died, the first thing I did was wander outside and take a walk around the block and there were no words I could muster at all. And no matter how strong the performances were and how well the episode managed to step around exploitation there were moments where the camera may have lingered for just a moment too long and I'd be reminded that I'm watching a drama and that these people are acting, once you're reminded of this your emotional connection is then broken.

This also creates a theoretical problem. The opening episode as said, is all about the performances. Not a lot happens in the opening episode aside from these performances and that is fine in itself. However Broadchurch has been described as an 'ensemble drama' but is also only eight episodes long. With so many characters and so many possible subplots suggested in this opening episode, it makes me wonder why this episode was paced and structured so very slowly and fills me with a worry that the next seven episodes are going to be overstuffed and rushed. With the pacing and structure of the opening episode, it would suggest benefiting from a smaller cast not a bigger one. And right now time will tell if this will work or turn into a chaotic and cramped soap opera.

I'm not really one who cares for casts, you either act well or you don't, who cares who you are but for once...wow, this cast is incredible. Alongside the aforementioned actors is the likes of Jodie Whittaker, Olivia Colman, Vicky McClure and David Bradley. There are so many familiar faces, there is no point me listing them all, any British people out there will likely recognise 90% of the cast.

I feel the need to mention the cast especially here as on the back of a weaker cast, this episode would probably not have worked as well. You've seen every character in this show before, maybe with a different name and face but they are ultimately still the same character. Everyone is one-dimensional and archetypal and could be summed up in a single sentence, largely leaving all the work to the actors who must bring these characters to life and give them depth without any real help from the script. And my God do they.

Olivia Colman gets the role of the naive, innocent DS Ellie Miller. She's lived in Broadchurch her whole life and seems to think that is what makes her a good detective, her heart is in the right place but it is possible she cares too much. Colman is a wonderfully charming actress and under anyone else Ellie would have simply been very annoying.

Despite facial fluff that'll make teenagers laugh and a constant appearance like he needs a sandwich Tennant brings a world weariness to newly appointed DI Alec Hardy that gives him a classic detective feel, and Tennant is always a solid actor even when dealing with a somewhat generic character like the detective from the big city with a past, coming to the small town to get away and not quite fitting in because he wants to get the job done officially and professionally and doesn't have the same connection to the town and its people as anyone else, despite being the lead on the case.

Jodie Whittaker and Andrew Buchan are given the grieving parents with dark secrets roles as Beth and Mark Latimer respectively. The idea of a lost or dead child is nothing nice for anyone which is perhaps why their joint performance feels so raw and tangible, we feel their panic and ultimately their despair as it rises and takes shape right before our eyes. Mark especially in many cases, as his scene where he blamed himself for his sons death broke my heart.

Jonathan Bailey and Vicky McClure get to be our journalists for the thing, so they in turn get to be the villains as journalists always are if the cops are the protagonists. Bailey gets the role of Oliver Stevens, the wide eyed nephew of Ellie who dreams of being a big time reporter and cares little about human compassion to get there. McClure gets the role of Karen White, the big city journalist who is a douchebag in all regards and has it out for Hardy.

Dead children, sadly, has become somewhat of a cheap device to get a certified reaction from the audience. And although there is some degree of that here, it's unavoidable, the notion of a dead 11 year old is played as exactly what it is, a horror story and avoids slipping into all out exploitation. As someone who lost someone close to me (thankfully not murdered) I found this deeply unsettling and watching each character accept the death and crumbling as a result very painful, this is not an easy watch at all but it has enough respect for everything to not feel like a novelty. Well done, Broadchurch.

Broadchurch, ultimately, is a very strange blend. It's a million miles away from the American Cop Shows that play out more like low budget action flicks come slasher flicks but retains that high quality American feel with the kind of direction and cinematography you often don't even find in the movies these days. Despite being extremely filmic however, the actual contents are extremely stagy. You take the cinematography away and you could translate this to the stage basically completely intact, so I can honestly perfectly understand if your first reaction to this is boredom. I'll say this hesitantly but I feel this is a Crime Drama for an older audience, it has a sense of maturity throughout that is unlikely to hold the attention of a younger audience. If you are an older, more mature fan of the cop show, then I think there is a lot to like here, even if it isn't an easy watch.

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