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| ITV's Broadchurch keeps the nation's viewers guessing until the end | ITV's Broadchurch keeps the nation's viewers guessing until the end |
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| Step aside the dowager duchess. When the murder mystery Broadchurch came to an end on ITV on Mondaynight, it confirmed its status as the channel's biggest new drama since Downton Abbey and the most popular midweek drama hit for nearly a decade. | |
| The hunt for the killer of schoolboy Danny Latimer, led by two detectives played by former Doctor Who star David Tennant and Olivia Colman, gripped the nation in a style redolent of "Who shot JR?" The TV landscape has changed since more than 20 million viewers tuned in to discover the identity of JR Ewing's assailant, but with an average weekly audience of nearly 10 million, Broadchurch catapulted itself into ITV's top tier next to Coronation Street and Britain's Got Talent. | The hunt for the killer of schoolboy Danny Latimer, led by two detectives played by former Doctor Who star David Tennant and Olivia Colman, gripped the nation in a style redolent of "Who shot JR?" The TV landscape has changed since more than 20 million viewers tuned in to discover the identity of JR Ewing's assailant, but with an average weekly audience of nearly 10 million, Broadchurch catapulted itself into ITV's top tier next to Coronation Street and Britain's Got Talent. |
| Such was the secrecy around its denouement that only 29 people – cast and crew, plus a handful of ITV executives – knew the identity of the culprit before Monday's eighth and final episode. | |
| Peter Fincham, ITV's director of television, said: "In a world of box sets where we can watch three or four episodes of our favourite programme in one night, Broadchurch reminded us of the pleasure of deferred pleasures. We don't have previews at the end of each episode giving away half of the next week's plot. | Peter Fincham, ITV's director of television, said: "In a world of box sets where we can watch three or four episodes of our favourite programme in one night, Broadchurch reminded us of the pleasure of deferred pleasures. We don't have previews at the end of each episode giving away half of the next week's plot. |
| "We commission a lot of very good drama at ITV but sometimes something comes along which is a little bit out of the ordinary. You could point to the first series of Downton Abbey as another example of something where everything comes together." | "We commission a lot of very good drama at ITV but sometimes something comes along which is a little bit out of the ordinary. You could point to the first series of Downton Abbey as another example of something where everything comes together." |
| Critics heaped praise on the drama, made by the independent producer Kudos, which began with the discovery of an 11-year-old's body at the foot of a cliff in a rural Dorset town. Sure to sweep the board at awards time, it has also been profitable: it is estimated to have generated around £15m for ITV in advertising revenue. | Critics heaped praise on the drama, made by the independent producer Kudos, which began with the discovery of an 11-year-old's body at the foot of a cliff in a rural Dorset town. Sure to sweep the board at awards time, it has also been profitable: it is estimated to have generated around £15m for ITV in advertising revenue. |
| Suspicion immediately alighted on the dead boy's father, but then encompassed virtually every character, including the husband of one of the investigating detectives, a "psychic" phone engineer and a recovering alcoholic vicar. Its focus on the community and the grief of a bereaved family brought comparisons with the acclaimed Scandinavian drama hit The Killing, which was broadcast in the UK on BBC4. | |
| Tthe killer was revealed to be Joe Miller – whom many viewers suspected – the husband of detective Ellie Miller, played by Olivia Colman. | |
| Writer Chris Chibnall, whose previous scripts include Life on Mars, Doctor Who and its spin-off Torchwood, said his influences stretch back further than that to the 1990s US cop show Murder One and David Lynch's Twin Peaks. | |
| Chibnall first pitched the idea for the show 10 years ago, but ended up writing Life on Mars for the BBC instead. He returned to Broadchurch after an unhappy period in the US working on the drama Camelot. | |
| His idea was for a project which would be "very cinematic, very image driven, in which it wouldn't just be about the dialogue". Chibnall also wanted to make the landscape of his home county, Dorset, integral to the drama. The village of West Bay, where it was filmed, has reported a surge in tourism bookings. "I wanted to make the landscape a real character which is frankly just nicked from Thomas Hardy," said Chibnall. Tennant's character is called Alex Hardy. Another character was seen reading Jude the Obscure. | His idea was for a project which would be "very cinematic, very image driven, in which it wouldn't just be about the dialogue". Chibnall also wanted to make the landscape of his home county, Dorset, integral to the drama. The village of West Bay, where it was filmed, has reported a surge in tourism bookings. "I wanted to make the landscape a real character which is frankly just nicked from Thomas Hardy," said Chibnall. Tennant's character is called Alex Hardy. Another character was seen reading Jude the Obscure. |
| Gub Neal, former Channel 4 director of drama and now creative director of producer and distributor Artists Studio, said: "It's refreshing to see something so intelligent and so layered on a mainstream network. It doesn't conform to the traditional expectation that crime is a Rubik's cube, plot-driven thing in which the purpose of watching the drama is to see who did it. Although solving the case remains an engine, it becomes about more than that." | Gub Neal, former Channel 4 director of drama and now creative director of producer and distributor Artists Studio, said: "It's refreshing to see something so intelligent and so layered on a mainstream network. It doesn't conform to the traditional expectation that crime is a Rubik's cube, plot-driven thing in which the purpose of watching the drama is to see who did it. Although solving the case remains an engine, it becomes about more than that." |
| With broadcasters increasingly turning to drama to define their channels, the importance of a hit such as Broadchurch cannot be overestimated. It is the most popular new drama since Downton Abbey in 2010 and the biggest midweek hit since Doc Martin, the Cornish medical series starring Martin Clunes, in 2004. Despite ITV's reluctance to discuss the likelihood of a sequel, the end credits of the final episode confirmed what many people thought, that the hit show will indeed return for a second season. | |