WHO KILLED DANNY - AND DO I CARE? POSSIBLE SPOILER HINTS AHEAD!!! DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU ARE HOOKED OIN BROADCHURCH. Most of my chums are cheering Broadchurch - a British cop show miniseries which is half way through here. The show has been much lauded, with awards up the wazoo, and is going into a second series. I came to with some enthusiasm (I like good cop shows), it had great reviews and ratings in the UK and has been remade in America with a (nearly) all-American cast and setting. It is an investigation into the murder of Danny, a boy from a remote fishing/summer resort village. And I was disappointed. Part of the problem is that the charms of David Tennant (as Hardy, the lead cop) elude me. Im sure hes a fine actor, he was great as Dr. Who and his recent Hamlet probably establishes him in the pantheon of young English acting lions. I find him neurotic, which may be great for Dr. Who and even Hamlet, not so much - for me - as a leading detective in a murder case. I understand theyve made him an interesting cop with a slightly mysterious (so far) background, but there is a fine line between interesting and doollaley and last night we tipped right over the edge. I also find him condescending (patronizing?) to his 2IC, Miller, a female cop who should have got his job but was passed over. In the first episode, at least, I had problems with her, too. I understand shes a local, that that local affairs have emotional impact on her, but she was wearing her heart on her sleeve rather more than befits any cop. I accept that this may be why she didnt get Hardys job but this left us with a neurotic cop and a weeping Mother Earth figure to investigate the murder. Im happy to say that Olivia Colman, playing the female cop Miller, is doing sterling work in later episodes, and Im starting to feel that the script was the problem in episode one, not the actress. All right, I can perhaps buy all that (not really) if the investigation of the murder is intriguing but maybe Ive written too many cop shows to be intrigued by this one. The first major suspect is the dead Dannys father, Mark, played by Andrew Buchan (who is more than bit of all right) but it was, of course, a total red herring. Its an eight episode show and the probability of the prime suspect in episode 2 being the actual murderer are slightly less than zero - what are we going to do for the next six hours? Mark becomes the suspect because he cannot provide an alibi for the time of the murder, although Blind Freddie can guess what he was really doing - having a bit on the side and not wanting his wife to know. So that played out as it shouldnt - the bit on the side revealed herself, the wife knew - and nothing happened. In episode four, the Mark and his wife Beth are carrying on as if nothing had happened. Which is a pity, because Jodie Whittaker as Beth, the wife, is giving a sterling performance, one of the more interesting characters in the show, and how much more interesting it would be to follow what happened to Mark and Beth after the affair is known? (I think it would have been even more interesting if Mark had been doing it with another bloke, but maybe Im prejudiced). Now that Mark is out of the way, episode four was pretty much treading water, setting up (or developing) other suspects, who all seem to have a dark secret in their past, which means that it is none of them. Jack, for example, the local newsagent, is revealed to have a child abuse conviction in his past so that plot line is fairly predictable (I doubt will stay in the village or even live). Nor does it help that the actor in question, David Bradley, gave a wonderful performance as the villainous Walder Frey in Game of Thrones so hes battling ones own memory of him. Perhaps this is the downside of British tv using the same rather limited pool of actors in everything. Widen the net, I say, give us faces we havent seen, not faces we have. The same applies to Pauline Quirke, giving an excellent, menacing performance as Susan, but er know her from lots of shows, shes almost an old mate and so as Broadchurch seems populated by lots of people we already know, it is difficult - for me - to suspend disbelief. Even the Vicar is an old familiar face (another Dr. Who alumnus), and, like the other obvious suspects, seems haunted by some dark secrets, so it is unlikely he murdered Danny, because its all a bit obvious. Clearly, the murderer is someone we dont suspect, probably someone we think of as super nice and Ive lost interest. There is so much more to village life that a lot of people with dark secrets. Tutukaka (and environs) is heavily populated with people with secrets - most of which are well known to the community - and none behave as suspiciously as the suspects do it Broadchurch. Until last night I had studiously avoided finding out who the murderer is, although I thought (hoped?) it might be the mother, as the least obvious, but a chum emailed me to ask if I had guessed yet. Well, I hadnt, because I am starting to feel that I dont care who murdered Danny - too many tricks are being played, Broadchurch is awash with fairly obvious suspects, none of whom are likely to have done it.
Posted on: Sun, 01 Jun 2014 22:52:31 +0000
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