3 out of 5

Creator: Chris Chibnall

covers season 1

The small community dealing with the death of a child, the unknown killer, the mismatched cop partners, the quiet, somber atmosphere – I can’t be alone in being reminded of ‘The Killing’ with the general pitch of ‘Broadchurch.’  But the intro episode seem to offer a tighter, more focused, and less soap opera-y telling of the story, with seemingly less room for unneeded subplots and misdirections thanks to a smaller cast and the very, very realized ‘local’ flavor of the town providing the groundwork for more immediate character studies.  Alas, even at less episodes per season (8 to Killing’s 13), Broadchurch still suffers from those same missteps, and ends up being less satisfying than Killing by not being able to follow the spider-web effects of one event to a larger scale.

Danny’s body is found on the beach.  Did he jump from the cliffs above?  The answer comes from the forensics – showing that he was suffocated, the hunt for his murderer is on.  Local police Ellie should be in line for a promotion to chief inspector (or whatever that top spot is), and is ready to head up the investigation… but David Tennant is brought in from elsewhere to swoop up that position, and his outsider status and complete inability to socialize create automatic tension between he and Ellie… and the rest of the town.

While there are some interesting twists and turns in the first couple episodes, the rightaway fingering of a suspect deflates the tension, because we know it’s not going to be them.  (Or at least it’ll be disproven at that point.)  There’s also a weird undercurrent of a lack of emotion from a lot of the principle parties, which isn’t played up effectively enough to feel purposeful.  And ‘The Killing’ did a better job at justifying while people who might otherwise not be scrutinized as suspects decide to lie about some matter or another, whereas here the lies just seem like excuses to keep them in the accusable pool.  About midway through the 8 episode season, the writers realize they’ve done enough finger-flinging for now and focus on the small-town ripple, but it carries that same underwhelming lack, and so it’s hard to feel much sympathy or empathy.

These criticisms aside, the Tennant / Ellie (sorry to mix real and fake names, heh) dnyamic is very interesting – his mannerisms and mysterious background are well done, her family dynamic mixed with the need to be police is realistically shown – and in general the show is shot and acted with a lot of grace, and though it faults toward less than more, the avoidance of the extra violence and shouting that Killing would occasionally perpetrate in favor of subdued responses is appreciated.  Neither extreme is necessarily accurate all the time, and both have for sure occurred in the real world plenty of times, but Broadchurch’s humble approach allows us, as a viewer, to not get distracted by spectacle and to contemplate the matters along with the soft-spoken characters.

What made ‘The Killing’ work… after it took some time to find its way… was that it realized the identity of the killer didn’t really matter so much.  ‘Broadchurch’ wanders about in a haze for its run, delivering an incredibly involving setting and setup and some wonderful characters and actors but not really knowing how hard to press in any given direction, then delivering the whodunnit like an end-all to the mystery, when the show seemed to want to be about more.  Perhaps with its big child-killer shocker out of the way, the series will be able to settle into its britches in the next season.