Broadchurch : A murder mystery drama that puts aside the mystery and gives you drama which pulls you in

I want to talk about a new show i just watched, only 8 episodes in the first season, just watched all episodes in 2 days, and it is riveting! It is one murder and it stirres up a whole town, in which everyone seems to have secrets and problems... welcome to Broadchurch.

Broadchurch : Show synopsis
David Tennant ( The 10th Doctor Who) and Olivia Colman lead the cast in this powerful new detective series. A small community in Dorset is rocked by the death of local boy Danny Latimer. D.I. Alec Hardy (Tennant) a weird out-of-town detective with a checkered past, is drafted in to head up the investigation instead of local officer DS Ellie Miller (Colman).
As the investigation proceeds, the lives of the locals - from the Latimer family, to priest Paul Coates and mysterious Susan Wright are explored as they deal with the life changing events.

However, what was great about Broadchurch's initial first episode was that it didn't glorify—or even really focus on—the death of Danny Latimer. Instead it immediately dug into the way his death disrupted the supposedly idyllic beach community.

However, one of the show's biggest strengths is the way its story expands to various corners of this smallish town, giving us perspectives from the police, the family, the media, and creepy townsfolk. Although most small-town murder mysteries claim to treat their settings as full-fledged characters, this one really does feel like a show where the town is a lead player; the Broadchurch title fits.

Broadchurch benefits so much from its location shooting, particularly that cliff and beach. We've been bombarded by shows that try to match their grimy and ugly subject matter with similarly depressing scenery, but this one smartly goes the other way, giving us beautiful shots of a warm, inviting place that immediately contradict the ugly things happening below the surface. All the scenes and shots on the beach worked wonders for Broadchurch's tone; slow-motion helped make the discovery of Danny's body seem almost like a surreal dream for his mother, Beth, and even for D.S. Miller. The contrast between the light and dark isn't new, but it kind of feels that way in the shadow of the grays and rainy days of a series like The Killing.

Although Danny's death is the show's big, driving mystery, this first episode didn't exploit it with any gratuitous, violent imagery, and the mystery part of the story didn't suffocate the rest of the proceedings. Hardy and Miller bickered about the typical things—he took her job, she's too close to the community to truly work the case—but those moments were both few and far between and very well-performed by the awesome David Tennant and Olivia Colman. There wasn't a ton of focus on lingering, "Look how creepy this guy is!" shots, or an obnoxious cliffhanger.

A dozen characters, played by the inevitably glorious assortment of British actors, crisscross in an astonishingly fluid game of cat's cradle, bringing this small town miraculously to life but never straying too far, or too absurdly, from the narrative through line.

The young and uncertain vicar (Arthur Darvill, also late of Doctor Who), the gruff news agent ("Harry Potter's" David Bradley), the editor of the local paper (Carolyn Pickles) and her cub reporter (Jonathan Bailey), the owner of the town's nice hotel (Simone McAullay) and the odd angry beachcomber (Pauline Quirke) all have powerful back stories that relate, in one way or another, to Danny's death.

Post-pilot, Broadchurch feels confident, but not showy. There are a lot of characters and elements in play, but the series knows where it's going. There's no reason to rely on shocking moments or graphic images. This was an introduction to a community that's about to be torn apart, and a darn good one at that.

The writers of the series were excellent both in plot and delivery. I found the story line compelling with an excellent delivery at the end. not too many obvious clues were thrown at us, potential suspects were reduced to the minimum. In terms of the actual mystery at the center of the show, I still had no real idea who did it after watching five episodes. And I'll say that the show doesn't rely too much on big fake-outs throughout those episodes. Like the first season of AMC's The Killing, Broadchurch is less interested in the the mystery of the crime, and more in the emotional and psychological fallout of the crime. Unlike The Killing, Broadchurch resolves the mystery definitively and satisfyingly. No spoilers!

Broadchurch (which Fox has already planned an American adaption of) probably benefits from the fact that it doesn’t have to play out its mystery for 13 or 22 episodes–or beyond, to another season. But what's great about Broadchurch is not that, in the end, it lets you know everything. It's that it makes you feel everything.

Some problems will be understanding the dialogue through the thick accents of the shows characters? David Tennant is almost incomprehensible. But, the fact that the mystery ends this season is good enough to overlook that.

Laughs : Even bookmakers offered odds on who killed Latimer during the shows initial airing in Bitain.