Broadchurch is a British crime drama television series broadcast on ITV for three series between 2013 and 2017. It was created by Chris Chibnall, who acted as an executive producer and wrote all 24 episodes and produced by Kudos in association with Imaginary Friends Productions Ltd. The series is set in Broadchurch, a fictional English town on the coast of Dorset and focuses on Detective Inspector Alec Hardy (David Tennant) and Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller (Olivia Colman). Other members of the ensemble cast appearing in all three seasons are Jodie Whittaker, Andrew Buchan, Arthur Darvill, Carolyn Pickles, Jonathan Bailey, Matthew Gravelle, Charlotte Beaumont and Adam Wilson.
The first series, which premiered on 4 March 2013, focuses on the death of local 11-year-old Daniel "Danny" Latimer and the impact of grief, mutual suspicion and media attention on the town. Danny's family, his mother, Beth (Jodie Whittaker), father, Mark (Andrew Buchan) and sister, Chloe (Charlotte Beaumont), is a key focus. The second series, which premiered on 5 January 2015, follows the dual story lines of bringing Danny's killer to justice and a case from the past returning to haunt Hardy. The third and final series, which premiered on 27 February 2017, focuses on the rape of a local woman (Julie Hesmondhalgh) at a birthday party, while the Latimer family goes to extreme lengths to move on from Danny's death. Chibnall has stated that the third series was the last and that he had originally envisioned Broadchurch as a trilogy.
All three series received positive reviews and praise for the writing, cinematography, performances (particularly Tennant and Colman) and character development.
Episodes
Development
Conception
Broadchurch creator and writer Chris Chibnall described the project as a labour of love. He conceived Broadchurch in about 2003 while working on his first series, Born and Bred. The concept for Broadchurch was to explore how a child's murder affects a small, close-knit local community and how the characters react to the media attention and mutual suspicion that arise.
The series' location was partly inspired by the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, where Chibnall lived. Chibnall says that he initially did not have a location in mind for the series, but the opportunity to improve his work-life balance made setting the show in Dorset appealing. From 2006 to 2011, Chibnall spent most of his time travelling about the UK and Ireland, working on Torchwood, Law & Order: UK and Camelot. By setting the show in Dorset, Chibnall did not have to spend time away from his home and family. His decision to set the show on the Jurassic Coast also helped him generate more ideas and tighten the writing. For example, Dorset-born poet and author Thomas Hardy's surname was used for one of the main characters (DI Alec Hardy). Hardy's use of the term "Wessex" was used to name the fictional Wessex Police, and character Jack Marshall reads the Hardy novel Jude the Obscure.
The series' name also came from Dorset. Chibnall invented the name "Broadchurch" based on two settlements in Dorset: "I thought a lot about the literary heritage of this county. In true Thomas Hardy style, I came up with a compound location name of Broadchurch combining the hamlets of Broadoak and Whitchurch."
Writing
Chibnall wrote the script for Broadchurch on spec after his work on Camelot had ended. He began using whiteboards in May 2011 to create backgrounds for each character and craft the plot of the series—which he envisioned as a trilogy. Series one was written to work both as the first of a trilogy and as a self-contained drama. He believed that it should be self-contained in case the show did not do well in the ratings and that a second series was not commissioned. Chibnall was assisted in this process by friends Sam Hoyle (a television script executive) and television director James Strong. The series was influenced by two American television shows, Twin Peaks (created by Mark Frost and David Lynch) and Murder One (created by Steven Bochco, Charles H. Eglee and Channing Gibson).