Broadchurch

For the last few weeks there has been a drama on ITV called Broadchurch.

Danny was a 11 year old boy who was killed and left on the beach in Broadchurch. DI Alec Hardy (played by David Tennant) was called in to help on the investigation and worked with local police officer DS Ellie Miller (played by Olivia Coleman). Broadchurch itself was a small coastal village, the crime came as a shock to the community.

For 7 weeks the murder mystery was played out. Now after the final episode I'll review what was a cracking piece of drama, best thing on TV so far this year and a program that kept me at least guessing until the very end.


So like all murder mysteries there had to be suspects. For Broadchurch there was some cliched suspect as well as some surprises along the way.

The first suspect was unfortunately Danny's own father Mark Latimer, his alibi all the way back in episode two was questioned. The reason being he'd given a fake alibi to hide an affair with the Australian hotel owner Becca.

The next suspect was Steve, a telephone engineer who knew facts about the case. Obviously they thought he was suspicious as he said he'd gotten the information out of Danny and that he was a pyschic.

Third came the creepy old man who ran the post office Jack Marshall (played by the wonderful David Bradley), this was one of two cliche's that you knew was going to happen before it did. From episode one I knew he was going to either be accused of being a pedophile or would actually turn out to be one. It was a little of both in the end, the character had fallen in love with someone just under the age limit, he was arrested and sentenced. The sad part of the story was that when he came out of prison he married the girl and had a child, after their son died they split up. The papers got hold of the crime and along with a mob of villagers hounded him. He ended up committing suicide.

A strange suspect was local vicar Paul Coates (played by Arthur Darvill). Hardy takes a dislike to him, thinking he was basking in the coverage the death brought to the village. There was never really any motive or story behind it though, more a disliking on Hardy's part then anything else.

The next two suspects came hand in hand. For weeks we'd seen them arguing in the background but it was time for the second cliche to become suspect. Susan Wright (Pauline Quirke) is the strange older lady living on her own in a caravan, when she gives Ellie Millers son Danny's skateboard she becomes a suspect and one of the first things she does is (after complaining about her dog going missing) points the finger of blame at Nigel Carter, employee and friend of Mark Latimer. It turns out that Susan is Nigels birth mother, but after her husband killed their eldest daughter it came to light that he'd been sexually attacking his daughters and he was imprisoned. No one believed Susan wouldn't know about it so when social services found out that she was pregnant again they took the baby from her, and that baby was Nigel.

Those were the suspects. Some acted a lot more suspicious then others, I still to this day can't believe nothing more dodgy came about of one of them other then he is a bit crazy.

Guessed who it was yet?

The rest of the cast included all of Danny's family, his mum Beth who not only had to come to terms with the death of her son, the affair her husband was having but also that she was pregnant. Danny's sister Chloe who was hiding a slightly older boyfriend and his grandmother Liz who stayed with the family to help them.

You had Miller's family as well, her son Tommy was Danny's best friend. We saw him deleting e-mails and text messages from Danny in the first episode and him destroying his laptop later on. There was also Millers younger son Fred and her husband Joe who is a stay at home husband.

Then we had a whole host of lovely, charming journalists. Locals Maggie and Olly (Olly being Millers nephew) and the big time journalist Karen who takes the case on as she dislikes Hardy. Portraying the journalist side in a way that just made you want to scream most of the time, they did more harm at times then good and did the usual hand waving away of any guilt.

Clues came in slowly and to be honest there wasn't that many to begin with, the body had been cleaned, they found were he died but it had been cleaned, they found the boat used to depose of the body but everyone in the village had access to it. Every clue came to a dead end, it looked like it would be impossible to know what happened to Danny, with DI Hardy's health deterring it looked like the series would end without us catching the killer...

Until the last episode.

You want to know what happened?

Well I have to say this about the series it totally knocked me for a six. The murder was.....

Joe Miller!

It turned out that he was "in love" with Danny and they'd been meeting up to talk and hug, we are lead to believe that is all it was, that he brought him a phone and gave him some money but that he never sexually abused Danny. The night of his death Danny had grown tired of it and wanted to stop but knowing that if Danny told anyone about it Joe confronted him and ended up strangling Danny in anger and by accident.

How did DI Hardy find him?

He gave himself up to be honest, turned Danny's missing phone back on so that all Hardy had to do was follow the signal and he found him.

But Broadchurch will be back, so we haven't seen the last of it.

So the series?

It was wonderful. The writing was top notch, the acting was superb and the story blew me away.

I'll start with the story.

Some of it was predictable to a point, the dad having an affair, the creepy old guy being a... Creepy old guy. I've called some characters cliched because that is what they were, it wasn't a bad thing, but it was kind of "you can't have a single old man running a newsagents and spending time with children without him being dodgy in some way", the same with Susan. The thing that saved it from falling into a "I've seen this all before" category was the story it was telling.

I've never felt so sorry for characters before. Even Susan's story, though I didn't 100% believe her, made me sad. I was so furious with the journalists after Jack died that if there wasn't a week between episodes I think I would have spent the next one screaming at the TV instead of watching!

The only weak point was the end. I didn't really get the whole being in love with Danny thing. I think it was too easy to make Joe a full blown pedophile and there is something spooky about the way he described it that sent shivers up your spine. Hardy voices it quite well as saying just because he didn't do anything yet didn't mean it wouldn't have happened later on. It was perfectly chilling but it had about 10 minutes were I was totally lost and it felt like a bit of a let down. That was only 10 minutes though, by the end of it I was in tears again.

I think one of the things that made it work so well was you fell in love with Ellie, she was a wonderful character, a total contrast to the cold heartless Hardy, so bubbly and so normal for me as a West-Country girl. She loved her family, was totally shocked when someone asked her out (he knew she was married as well!) and was just a lovely compassionate character. The emotions Olivia Coleman portrayed finding out that her husband was the one that had killed Danny were tremendous. She didn't sit there looking blank the whole time she reacted, she didn't believe it, it made her physically sick, she got angry, upset.... The range of emotions, the fluidity that she moved from one to the other. One of the best characters I've ever seen on TV. Sad to say by the end of it I felt sorrier for Ellie then I did for Beth.

Everyone was made to look dodgy in one way or the other which kept the mystery, and that was what the series needed. The big problem with a series like this is if you give it away too quickly the rest of the series when the characters are figuring it out can bore you. The fact is the only person who was 100% never a suspect was the one that did it!

The story was a work of art, it was intricate and just superb.

So the acting?

This is the first time I can honestly say that I loved David Tennant. He played his character so well, from the first episode I knew the cold hearted bastard wasn't all there was to him. I wanted to hug him (never happened before, trust me, I usually hate everything Tennant is in) when he told the journalists that the big case he ballsed up he took the blame for his wife who had been having an affair and lost the evidence. You always understood the difficulty the character was facing, but you saw the warmth he had for Ellie and the companionship (possibly wrong word choice for Tennant!) that grew between them.

I've already explained why Olivia Coleman was wonderful, she became the figure that the audience saw the events with. She was kind to everyone, she was compassionate I just can't explain in words how wonderful she was. Every scene with her in tonight was a piece of heartbreak.

The rest of the class were so wonderful but what would you expect from a cast with Pauline Quirke, David Bradley and Arthur Darvill?

I couldn't help it Arthur is still Rory Pond to me but his character was just so strong, he wasn't a push over and wasn't going to let Hardy get away with things. He was the one that stood up for Jack, he was the one that was trying to keep the spirits of the village up. At times he seemed like he was using the  tragedy for his own gains but he really wasn't. Arthur is a wonderful actor, in my mind criminally underused in Doctor Who at times and I really can't wait to see more and more with him in.

The other actor I have to say was terribly wonderful was Vicky McClure. I hated her character, she had me raging at the television most of the time. She was everything I hate about journalistic types in these things, but how horrible in my mind that character was just went as a testament to how wonderful the actress was. In the end I knew she wasn't half as bad as I felt she was, all she ever wanted to do was do what was right for the family, but I enjoyed having someone to rant about every week.

For me I always thought it was Tommy so I was closer then some people I know. With him deleting text messages, shouting that he wasn't Danny's friend at Chloe and smashing up his laptop I knew there had to be more to it. My work college thought it was Ellie! This really was a show that kept us all guessing.

If you haven't watched the show yet really you should, it is wonderfully written and will make you cry. You know nothing at all about Danny yet his murder is what brings you into this tiny community, you see how it shatters it to the ground.

The best piece of TV of 2013 so far. It will take something to beat this!