What I Saw: Broadchurch
Broadchurch is a British TV series. I saw Season 1, Episodes 1-8, I did miss parts of the second episode, but it really didn't matter in the overall viewing of the show. There might be a Season 2 coming up.
Broadchurch is a British procedural murder mystery that occurs in a town called Broadchurch which might be on the western coast of Great Britain. I did some dilly-dallying Googling for the town but didn't come up with much. The sea shore does have some notable cliffs on it, but none of them are white as in the White Cliffs of Dover. The cliffs are yellow. The sea shore is sandy and not rocky. Brighton has the rocky shore and it is on the east coast or so all my Jane Austen and William Thackeray reading makes me think. So much for British geography, some one can correct me if they like. Not that it matters to me if the sea coast is east or west or New Jersey.
A young, 11 year old boy is found sprawled and dead on the sea shore under one of the high cliffs. It is his murder that the local police must solve. The Detective Sergeant on the case is a local woman back from maternity leave who has been promised a promotion to Detective Inspector. I guess that a Detective Inspector is an "officer" and the Detective Sergeant is "enlisted". I don't watch many of the other kind of British Mysteries on PBS, such as Detective Sergeant Major of the East Side Meets Detective Mosschischester (pronounced: Mosser) of the West Side, so the rank protocol is lost on me. But I am sure that this British Mystery series will show up on PBS in time.
The Woman Detective is played by Olivia Colman and I am a fan of hers. She is the reason why I decided to watch the show. I love her on Rev. which is currently playing on Hulu and is a good Brit Sit Com.
I also liked her portrayal of the late Queen Mother Elizabeth in Hyde Park on the Hudson. The late Queen Mother Elizabeth always showed up at the royal weddings with a lovely old lady smile on her face and she animatedly spoke to all the equerries and hobnobbers with friendly glee. When you saw her, you thought, "That is a jolly old lady. I would like to be around her." In the movie, Hyde Park on the Hudson, the Queen Mother is one badass bitch. You would not want to cross her. She didn't forgive or forget and she could roast her hubby, the King, on the spit of her tongue with the fire in her resentment. She was willing to burn down the White House again if FDR didn't give her what she wanted. And yet, you still saw the Jolly Old Lady that she would become late in her very long life. I was impressed with the late Queen Mother and Miss Colman.
The Woman Detective did not get her promotion. Instead, another Detective Inspector is brought into the station to run the Detective Bureau. The Detective Inspector is played by David Tennant. Mr. Tennant was one of the Dr. Whos. Evidently it was his Great Acting Goal to play Dr. Who and he achieved it. I have never watched a Dr. Who so his fame from that franchise is lost on me. I did see him on PBS in Hamlet and I liked his portrayal of that character. He had a languid petulance. Most actors start getting frantic when they play Hamlet and the play just keeps going on and on. Hamlet can be a very loooooong play if you let it be. And most actors play Mad Hamlet as afflicted with cerebral palsy along with the fake madness. It was good to avoid that with Mr. Tennant.
The Detective Inspector is from Scotland and has a Scottish accent. Scottish accents are my bête noirs, I won't repeat that story. So, I didn't understand half of what the Scottish DI was saying and I didn't have closed captioning which is very helpful when I am watching some of these British TV show. How can such a small nation have so many accents? And I don't think that most British people understand that many of those many accents.
But Mr. Tennant was very forceful when he had to be. At some point in the story, the DI sits at his desk and roars to the staff, "Find THAT DAMNED DOG!" "Out! Damned Spot!" (Haha! That is my Scottish play pun!) I understood that perfectly. As for the rest of his speeches, like the Detective that he played, I DEDUCED the gist of it from his physical portrayal and from Miss Colman's reactions to his speeches.
The DI has been transferred from Sandhurst where he botched a murder case and gained notoriety. Sandhurst is the British West Point where Prince Harry the Ginger went to school, but he later gained notoriety in Las Vegas. The name "Sandhurst" is flung around like a curse word on this show. The DI winces when he hears that word and has fainting spells. This is one of those shows where the DI has PROBLEMS! but he is soldiering on because he is from Sandhurst where Britain makes its soldiers.
The show has a great many episodes about the murdered boy's family and how they deal with his death. The show concentrates more on the family than the murder solving. That is good or bad depending upon what you are most interested in.
There is a dog in peril on this show, but he comes out well. The kid gets murdered, not the dog.
There is a curmudgeonly old man who is the opposite of the late Queen Mother. He acts tough on the outside, but inside, he is the marshmellow man. He gets roasted by the fire of notoriety. And there is a middle aged woman who didn't notice the sex abuse going on in her own family. The Woman Detective asks her, "How could you NOT know?" And them is famous last words, Woman Detective.
I didn't care much for the last episode. It resolved the mystery without the confessional tell-it-all-to-the-tabloid exposition dialogue that can go on longer than a poorly staged Hamlet, I appreciated that. But the conclusion was all too dramatic for a naturalistic murder mystery. It was as DRAMATIC as the DI's various illnesses and fainting spells. Those are good moments for an actor to play, but call too much attention to themselves and the actor. I liked the DI just fine the way he was when he was still healthy, but then he could have been insulting the late Queen Mother and I would have never been able to decipher his accent. But she would have known, wasn't she Scottish?
Broadchurch is a British procedural murder mystery that occurs in a town called Broadchurch which might be on the western coast of Great Britain. I did some dilly-dallying Googling for the town but didn't come up with much. The sea shore does have some notable cliffs on it, but none of them are white as in the White Cliffs of Dover. The cliffs are yellow. The sea shore is sandy and not rocky. Brighton has the rocky shore and it is on the east coast or so all my Jane Austen and William Thackeray reading makes me think. So much for British geography, some one can correct me if they like. Not that it matters to me if the sea coast is east or west or New Jersey.
A young, 11 year old boy is found sprawled and dead on the sea shore under one of the high cliffs. It is his murder that the local police must solve. The Detective Sergeant on the case is a local woman back from maternity leave who has been promised a promotion to Detective Inspector. I guess that a Detective Inspector is an "officer" and the Detective Sergeant is "enlisted". I don't watch many of the other kind of British Mysteries on PBS, such as Detective Sergeant Major of the East Side Meets Detective Mosschischester (pronounced: Mosser) of the West Side, so the rank protocol is lost on me. But I am sure that this British Mystery series will show up on PBS in time.
The Woman Detective is played by Olivia Colman and I am a fan of hers. She is the reason why I decided to watch the show. I love her on Rev. which is currently playing on Hulu and is a good Brit Sit Com.
I also liked her portrayal of the late Queen Mother Elizabeth in Hyde Park on the Hudson. The late Queen Mother Elizabeth always showed up at the royal weddings with a lovely old lady smile on her face and she animatedly spoke to all the equerries and hobnobbers with friendly glee. When you saw her, you thought, "That is a jolly old lady. I would like to be around her." In the movie, Hyde Park on the Hudson, the Queen Mother is one badass bitch. You would not want to cross her. She didn't forgive or forget and she could roast her hubby, the King, on the spit of her tongue with the fire in her resentment. She was willing to burn down the White House again if FDR didn't give her what she wanted. And yet, you still saw the Jolly Old Lady that she would become late in her very long life. I was impressed with the late Queen Mother and Miss Colman.
The Woman Detective did not get her promotion. Instead, another Detective Inspector is brought into the station to run the Detective Bureau. The Detective Inspector is played by David Tennant. Mr. Tennant was one of the Dr. Whos. Evidently it was his Great Acting Goal to play Dr. Who and he achieved it. I have never watched a Dr. Who so his fame from that franchise is lost on me. I did see him on PBS in Hamlet and I liked his portrayal of that character. He had a languid petulance. Most actors start getting frantic when they play Hamlet and the play just keeps going on and on. Hamlet can be a very loooooong play if you let it be. And most actors play Mad Hamlet as afflicted with cerebral palsy along with the fake madness. It was good to avoid that with Mr. Tennant.
The Detective Inspector is from Scotland and has a Scottish accent. Scottish accents are my bête noirs, I won't repeat that story. So, I didn't understand half of what the Scottish DI was saying and I didn't have closed captioning which is very helpful when I am watching some of these British TV show. How can such a small nation have so many accents? And I don't think that most British people understand that many of those many accents.
But Mr. Tennant was very forceful when he had to be. At some point in the story, the DI sits at his desk and roars to the staff, "Find THAT DAMNED DOG!" "Out! Damned Spot!" (Haha! That is my Scottish play pun!) I understood that perfectly. As for the rest of his speeches, like the Detective that he played, I DEDUCED the gist of it from his physical portrayal and from Miss Colman's reactions to his speeches.
The DI has been transferred from Sandhurst where he botched a murder case and gained notoriety. Sandhurst is the British West Point where Prince Harry the Ginger went to school, but he later gained notoriety in Las Vegas. The name "Sandhurst" is flung around like a curse word on this show. The DI winces when he hears that word and has fainting spells. This is one of those shows where the DI has PROBLEMS! but he is soldiering on because he is from Sandhurst where Britain makes its soldiers.
The show has a great many episodes about the murdered boy's family and how they deal with his death. The show concentrates more on the family than the murder solving. That is good or bad depending upon what you are most interested in.
There is a dog in peril on this show, but he comes out well. The kid gets murdered, not the dog.
There is a curmudgeonly old man who is the opposite of the late Queen Mother. He acts tough on the outside, but inside, he is the marshmellow man. He gets roasted by the fire of notoriety. And there is a middle aged woman who didn't notice the sex abuse going on in her own family. The Woman Detective asks her, "How could you NOT know?" And them is famous last words, Woman Detective.
I didn't care much for the last episode. It resolved the mystery without the confessional tell-it-all-to-the-tabloid exposition dialogue that can go on longer than a poorly staged Hamlet, I appreciated that. But the conclusion was all too dramatic for a naturalistic murder mystery. It was as DRAMATIC as the DI's various illnesses and fainting spells. Those are good moments for an actor to play, but call too much attention to themselves and the actor. I liked the DI just fine the way he was when he was still healthy, but then he could have been insulting the late Queen Mother and I would have never been able to decipher his accent. But she would have known, wasn't she Scottish?