When the body of eleven year old Danny Latimer is found on the beach of the English coastal town of Broadchurch, Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller (Olivia Colman) and her newly appointed boss Detective Inspector Alec Hardy (David Tennant) are called to investigate and the town starts to be torn apart by suspicions and secrets as the national media spotlight falls on the town.

 

BROADCHURCH is a compelling crime drama that doesn’t just focus on the investigation, but it also focuses on the family of the victim and the community in addition to how the media handles (and spins) the story.   David Tennant is brilliant as Alec Hardy as he fights against a medical condition that is putting his life at risk as he believes Broadchurch is his penance for failing on another murder investigation from a while ago. Arthur Darvill is also good as the town vicar.  BROADCHURCH had me guessing and wonder when they would follow up on the clues they kept dropping through the series.

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

BROADCHURCH: BEHIND THE SCENES- a 26 ½ minute featurette that has interviews with the cast, director Janes Strong, and creator/ writer Chris Chibnall in addition to a few bits of behind-the-scenes footage from the first script read through and the filming of the series.

 

26 minutes of deleted scenes from all eight episodes and the scenes were rightfully cut for pacing reasons.

 

Also on the release is the trailer for BROADCHURCH and previews for other releases from Entertainment One play before the first disc menu like ROGUE Season 1.

 

FINAL ANALYSIS: BROADCHURCH is a compelling murder mystery that also shows how it has it effects on a community.  I don’t know how they will continue this with a second season since the writer originally intended this as an eight episode story, but I am curious to see how the American remake coming to FOX called GRACEPOINT (also starring David Tennant) will compare and differ from BROACHURCH (and I hear Chris Chibnall wrote the pilot episode).

 

This DVD review is ©4-8-2014 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

 

Like Enterline Media on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/enterlinemediaweb and follow on tumblr at http://enterlinemedia.tumblr.com