MovieChat Forums > Broadchurch (2013) Discussion > Great show. But has misplaced manipulati...

Great show. But has misplaced manipulation.

posted 9 years ago by Semi_Sweet
4 replies | jump to latest

Firstly, I love the show. It is gripping, very well acted (shout out to Jodie Whittaker and Andrew Buchan) and has a good pace as well as a beautiful score. I also love that they are able to tackle a lot of themes simultaneously; family grief, religion, the media etc. It's all very admirable.

But they had a bit of a problem with misleading the viewers needlessly. For instance the scene where Nige points a crossbow at the dog ominously. Really was there any need? It just smacked of trying to tug us away from the real murderer when they were doing very well at concealing him to begin with. What about the revelation he and Danny were going out at night to hunt animals? That was never revisited when they caught the killer, just left hanging there...

There were also plot points and questions that were never really answered. Why did Susan have Danny's skateboard? Why did she give it to Tom knowing full well that they'd arrest her, just so she could tell them what she thought she saw on the beach? If she really cared about getting Nige off the streets for what he may have done then why not just tell them of her own accord?

The argument with the postman. What was all that about? What were they arguing about? Was Jack lying, or wrong? If so then shouldn't we as viewers get a proper answer? It was another case of going out of their way to try and pin something on somebody else when they needn't have. They kept showing him in "previously on Boardchurch" and yet he had two scenes in the whole season.

What was with Tom bashing the laptop in the woods right by Paul's church? Wasn't that a bit stupid? One might think to bash it up away from anybody potentially seeing. I found that to just be too much of an idiots move, sure, he's a kid, but he was smart enough to try to wipe his hard drive, why not do it completely alone, he knows where the church is, he knows there's someone in there...

There are other problems too. But those for now were the ones that irked me. If all of these are addressed in season two, or I missed the resolution, then consider me overzealous. I'm about to watch it over the next day or two so hopefully I get those answers.

It's still a great night! Still a great night.

[–] elliest_5 8 years ago

Can I also add that there were too many build-up montages with overly dramatic/suspenseful music. Especially in the 2nd season, which I just finished watching (I watched the 1st one when it came out so it's been a while and I can't remember if it was the same). It's almost like every other scene has some sort of dramatic build-up to it, as if something really crucial/game-changing is going to happen, which is rarely the case, of course.

~*~

[–] yogibear-3 8 years ago

The argument with the postman, they did film a scene explaining that but they had to cut it for time. It's on the DVD. Danny accidentally scratched the postman's van with his skateboard so it was an innocent argument unrelated to his death.

[–] houstonhacker 8 years ago

Agree with all this. There were enough red herrings flying around to open a fish market. I felt that both seasons were kind of draggy and would have been better with 6 episodes each.

[–] Jes' Sayin' (6094) 3 years ago

As if every show of this type doesn't do that.