DS Ellie Miller is expecting to be promoted but when eleven year old Danny Latimer is found murdered on the beach it is thought that somebody with more experience is needed. That person is DI Alec Hardy; he has experience with such a crime but as the prosecution failed in that case he may be a liability. Broadchurch isn't the sort of town where such things happen and everybody is shaken; it is also the sort of town where everybody seems to know everybody else but as the case progresses it emerges that many people have secrets and as they are exposed lives will be changed forever.
Plenty of suspects emerge; the Danny's father lies about where he was that night, the leader of the Sea Cadets has a conviction for underage sex, a woman living near the beach has Danny's skateboard and DS Miller's own son quickly deleted his correspondence with Danny as soon as he learnt his friend was dead to name but a few. By the time the story approached its conclusion many of these things had been explained but not all; as I settled down to watch the final episode there were still plenty of people I thought might have done it.
The large cast do a fine job; particularly David Tennant and Olivia Coleman who played Hardy and Miller and Jodie Whittaker who played Danny's mother. The story moved along nicely and despite the numerous suspects it didn't feel too convoluted. The only real fault I noticed was that we were expected to believe that Broadchurch was small enough for everybody to know everybody else involved yet it was big enough to have its own newspaper and a police station with its own CID thankfully by the end of the first episode I was engrossed enough to ignore this as dramatic licence.
All of the above was written prior to watching the finale to avoid unwitting spoilers; having now seen it I can say I think the series ended well. The creators eschewed the cliché of revealing the killer in the final minutes; instead we learnt who did it just before the first advert break. The rest of the episode was given over to explaining the motivation for the crime and more importantly showing how this resolution would affect the lives of those involved; both Danny's family and the relatives of the killer. The latter was particularly well handled as such series rarely dwell on the fact that learning that a loved one has committed a heinous crime will have a dramatic affect. As the credits finished we were promised another series; I hope they can replicate the quality of this story.
Plenty of suspects emerge; the Danny's father lies about where he was that night, the leader of the Sea Cadets has a conviction for underage sex, a woman living near the beach has Danny's skateboard and DS Miller's own son quickly deleted his correspondence with Danny as soon as he learnt his friend was dead to name but a few. By the time the story approached its conclusion many of these things had been explained but not all; as I settled down to watch the final episode there were still plenty of people I thought might have done it.
The large cast do a fine job; particularly David Tennant and Olivia Coleman who played Hardy and Miller and Jodie Whittaker who played Danny's mother. The story moved along nicely and despite the numerous suspects it didn't feel too convoluted. The only real fault I noticed was that we were expected to believe that Broadchurch was small enough for everybody to know everybody else involved yet it was big enough to have its own newspaper and a police station with its own CID thankfully by the end of the first episode I was engrossed enough to ignore this as dramatic licence.
All of the above was written prior to watching the finale to avoid unwitting spoilers; having now seen it I can say I think the series ended well. The creators eschewed the cliché of revealing the killer in the final minutes; instead we learnt who did it just before the first advert break. The rest of the episode was given over to explaining the motivation for the crime and more importantly showing how this resolution would affect the lives of those involved; both Danny's family and the relatives of the killer. The latter was particularly well handled as such series rarely dwell on the fact that learning that a loved one has committed a heinous crime will have a dramatic affect. As the credits finished we were promised another series; I hope they can replicate the quality of this story.