Broadchurch is classified as a crime drama. That's not really accurate. A crime kicks off the story - the death of a young boy - and we get to know the people (and suspects) of Broadchurch through a police investigation, but the real focus is on tracing how the loss ripples through the community. By casting the almost over qualified Olivia Colman and David Tennant as the detectives investigating the death the show manages, briefly, to look like it's aspiring to be a classy procedural in the vein of Prime Suspect and Cracker. Tennant's detective, who's new to the town, forces Colman to shift her perspective and view the people of Broadchurch, many of them friends of hers, as potential murderers. It's an interesting arc for Colman, it's just a shame no one noticed that Tennant wasn't given one. He does get a compelling, slowly teased out, backstory that is part of the reason for his dogged approach to the current case (although the trope of the detective that pushes himself to the limit, desperately trying to close the case at all costs, was well worn about a century back), but he gets nothing to do in the present beyond belittling Colman (always amusing) and scowling. Although he does the scowling thing rather well it hardly stands-in for character development.
A further frustration is that the pair aren't much good at the whole detecting lark. Practically every clue is handed to them, wrapped in a neat bow, and more often than not these tip-offs could have been given to them at any time during the eight episodes, but they're only deployed when the plot needs them. Structuring a murder mystery isn't easy, and sometimes you have to come up with the odd contrivance to keep a clue back, but there ought to be a rhyme and reason to it, rather than it being immediately apparent that it's just convenient for the writer. Instead of giving Tennant and Colman the opportunity to do some actual detecting most of the screen time is used up making it clear that anybody could be the culprit. (IF YOU WANT TO AVOID EVEN TINY SPOILERS THEN SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH) Which is fine as that's part of the point of the show and fits well with where Colman's character arc goes, but it works rather less well when there's just a handful of characters that are never considered for the crime, and one in particular who's so pointedly boring, beige and forgettable that you'll immediately clock that they're going to play a big part in the final reveal. Which wouldn't be an issue if the red herrings weren't so damned red herring-y (it's a word now, get over it). You shouldn't know that the suspect is innocent - and that you're being lead a merry dance - until, ideally, the very last episode. In Broadchurch you know it in scene one, episode one.
Fortunately Broadchurch isn't really a detective show. Instead the focus is on detailing the different stages of grief in a way few shows (or films) ever have. If the show were only about dealing with that pain, and how you'd look just about anywhere to find answers or a way to deal with it, then it'd be pretty close to perfect. Unfortunately Chris Chibnall, the creator and writer, spends a great deal of time pretending its classification is accurate. The best thing you can do is ignore that pretence. Broadchurch is a straight drama, and for the most part it's a damned good one.
Overall: 7/10
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