Something the fan girl in me has been wanting to write about for quite a while now is 'Broadchurch'. Yes, it has David Tennant in it, and yes, it's all about crime, and an interesting case, which is a great combination if you're me. And, as the biggest advantage of all, there are (hopefully) no vampires involved. Watching TV has been tough in the past 3 years if you're not into blood-sucking creatures...
Sadly enough, these 4 elements do not automatically add up to a great mini-series by themselves. It also takes a great plot, showing how the interesting case is solved. And this is the point in which 'Broadchurch' fails the audience, which is interesting when you're looking at Chris Chibnall's background. After all, he's a regular on 'Law & Order: UK' (something I've never watched so far, as I have to admit) so one might expect that he knows how to write a crime-related storyline. Then there are his various 'Doctor Who'* contributions, which were usually less spectacular in my humble opinion, with 'Dinosaurs on a Spaceship' being the one big exception...
One thing about crime series is that most writers fail at creating non-stereotype characters, and luckily Chibnall does not fall into this convenient trap. His characters seem to live real lives, all of them. Every resident and non-resident of Broadchurch has a proper background story and it's great to see someone putting this much effort into it°.
And this is also not my actual objection. The only thing, the really only thing Chibnall gets wrong is the police. Unfortunately he makes a big beginner's mistakes, namely, that the crime-related plot of 'Broadchurch' is boring and predictable.
You want proof? First of all, from episode 1 onwards it's so obvious that Danny's dad didn't kill his own son. You only need to put some thinking into it and you'll understand that the reason why he is behaving strangely and not answering the police's questions properly is because he cheated on his wife. And only by looking at the people living in Broadchurch you know whom he slept with, after all, there are not that many attractive, young-ish, single women around there (and single is an important criterion as then you do not need to go into how their mistake is threatening her marriage as well, something you do not want to deal with in an 8 part long story). But the police doesn't reveal this till episode 3.
The next suspects are Jack the newsagent, and Paul Coats the vicar. Well, when we see Jack burning the pictures of Danny and him you know that it wasn't Jack. He's no fool, so it's likely that he'd have burnt them before the whole fuss started happening. Besides, he is the one who gives Danny's mobile to the police. I mean, if it had been him, being familiar with the sea, he could have certainly come up with a nice salty, wet spot on the sea ground where (beside the fish) nobody would have ever found it again.
And the vicar? It's a TV drama, and nobody wants to offend the church. Additionally, it would be far too obvious. And as a good script-writer you're shunning the obvious. So, in a few days we'll watch the last but least episode of this 8-parter and so far the police has only eliminated those people about whom we already have been knowing several episodes ago that they were obviously not responsible for Danny's death.
Sadly enough, these 4 elements do not automatically add up to a great mini-series by themselves. It also takes a great plot, showing how the interesting case is solved. And this is the point in which 'Broadchurch' fails the audience, which is interesting when you're looking at Chris Chibnall's background. After all, he's a regular on 'Law & Order: UK' (something I've never watched so far, as I have to admit) so one might expect that he knows how to write a crime-related storyline. Then there are his various 'Doctor Who'* contributions, which were usually less spectacular in my humble opinion, with 'Dinosaurs on a Spaceship' being the one big exception...
One thing about crime series is that most writers fail at creating non-stereotype characters, and luckily Chibnall does not fall into this convenient trap. His characters seem to live real lives, all of them. Every resident and non-resident of Broadchurch has a proper background story and it's great to see someone putting this much effort into it°.
And this is also not my actual objection. The only thing, the really only thing Chibnall gets wrong is the police. Unfortunately he makes a big beginner's mistakes, namely, that the crime-related plot of 'Broadchurch' is boring and predictable.
You want proof? First of all, from episode 1 onwards it's so obvious that Danny's dad didn't kill his own son. You only need to put some thinking into it and you'll understand that the reason why he is behaving strangely and not answering the police's questions properly is because he cheated on his wife. And only by looking at the people living in Broadchurch you know whom he slept with, after all, there are not that many attractive, young-ish, single women around there (and single is an important criterion as then you do not need to go into how their mistake is threatening her marriage as well, something you do not want to deal with in an 8 part long story). But the police doesn't reveal this till episode 3.
The next suspects are Jack the newsagent, and Paul Coats the vicar. Well, when we see Jack burning the pictures of Danny and him you know that it wasn't Jack. He's no fool, so it's likely that he'd have burnt them before the whole fuss started happening. Besides, he is the one who gives Danny's mobile to the police. I mean, if it had been him, being familiar with the sea, he could have certainly come up with a nice salty, wet spot on the sea ground where (beside the fish) nobody would have ever found it again.
And the vicar? It's a TV drama, and nobody wants to offend the church. Additionally, it would be far too obvious. And as a good script-writer you're shunning the obvious. So, in a few days we'll watch the last but least episode of this 8-parter and so far the police has only eliminated those people about whom we already have been knowing several episodes ago that they were obviously not responsible for Danny's death.
Yes, pacing might be an issue here. And that's something crime series (or any other series in general) should never have a problem with. I'm not complaining about them not solving the case faster. But they could have focused on some more likely people. Like the guy who is constantly complaining about the bad effect the case has on the village's reputation. As a scriptwriter you could get a good story out of that.
Or Susan Wright. Why was noone, no-one looking into her background right after the police found out that she obviously lied to them about Mark. I mean people tend to remember phoning a plumber. After all, it takes a major event to trigger that.
And why are people not focusing on the postman who had an argument with Danny? And even though he denies the whole thing, why didn't they ask if there were any colleagues filling in for him during that time? It's a question people would expect the police to tackle. Or why did it took this long to learn about Danny going paint-balling? What else do they not know about, then? It's not like this would have been kept a secret.Or the money they found in Danny's bedroom? Or Nigle, even though I'm not sure if he'd done it. Chibnball obviously wants us to think that, but he's a pretty bad liar, so I'm not sure. Besides, why should he have killed his mate's son? They seem to be pretty close friends...
In my humble opinion, none of these people mentioned in this post murdered Danny (they might have influenced things, but in the end, I don't think they made their hands dirty). Nevertheless, all of them would have been adequate suspects to investigate and to make an 8 hour long crime mystery appear less boring. Now, one might argue that the borderline boring storyline (as far as the actual inspection is concerned) is part of the reason why the series feels so real. Plus, Chibnall is trying to compensate the slow paceing by adding several sub-plots to the story; like Alec not wanting the police to find out about his illness, the way the news agency is (and is not) involved into Jack's death, the way Mark's family is coping with the new situation and the baby, not to mentioning the whole drug-stuff about Dean (and Chloe?), and then there's Tom and his laptop... and so on. It's almost as if their purpose were some sort of distraction. In the end of the day, it all comes down to appearances. It's a whole village trying to keep their little secrets.
Then again these sub-plots give us inevitably more information on people's backgrounds, which makes things even more real. Well, that and the amazing acting. Talking about it, Olivia Colman and David Tennant are great. The frictions between them add a new (and the only interesting) side to the otherwise rather boring investigation so far. But maybe that's the point. Maybe Chibnall didn't want to write a well investigated crime story. Unfortunately, generally they are those which get all the attention... Besides, if you're good, you can even make a badly investigated crime story appear interesting.
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* You can't write a 'Broadchurch'-review without mentioning 'Doctor Who', can you, although I guess usually it's not because of Chibnall.
° Just compare the characters of any the major crime series to this (except Navy CIS, maybe, they're paying a lot of attention to that too). Chibnall manages to reveal more about his characters in 6 episodes, than 'Criminal Minds' or 'The Mentalist' managed to tell us about their main and less main characters in several seasons.
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