Gracepoint Vs. Broadchurch

[mledawn]

I'm actually glad that Joe being a pedophile came out of nowhere. It would have ruined the weighting of the entire show if the audience had any inkling of that early on - the depth of the "how could you not know" would be almost completely taken away.

 

The thread of the show follows our own biases: you suspect the sketchy characters, the ones with histories, the socially awkward ones, the ones who do *other* bad things like sell drugs... People don't suspect otherwise fine, upstanding citizens to be pedophiles, and sadly that's how it works. And that's why it worked in Broadchurch (to me).

[alexvillage]

 

The thread of the show follows our own biases: you suspect the sketchy characters, the ones with histories, the socially awkward ones, the ones who do *other* bad things like sell drugs... People don't suspect otherwise fine, upstanding citizens to be pedophiles, and sadly that's how it works. And that's why it worked in Broadchurch (to me).

That's not how it was for me. I suspected Chloe, then I guessed the boyfriend would be in on it because they were always together. Yes, there were the drugs, but apparently in Gracepoint drug trafficking is some minor offense that don't even require people to be investigated or deposed.

 

To me it just wasn't a well written mystery.

[Whimsy]

I also just completed a binge watch of BC after watching GP.  I don't really have a lot to say that is different.  I, too, liked BC much better.  The only difference is I liked Nick Nolte much better in GP and Jackie Weaver much better than her counterpart in GP.  I liked Hardy much, much better than Carver.  I never liked Anna Gunn- thought her character in Breaking Bad to be an annoying shrew- and I didn't like the character of Ellie any better. 

 

I also liked the little bits that were cut- the scene of Danny's dad at the ocean for one just really affected me and I thought the scene of Ellie attacking Joe was just much more raw and emotional in BC.

 

I don't know why GP had to be pretty much an exact replica of BC.  The dialogue and scenes being pretty much exact in both shows really bothered me.  I would've liked a little bit of difference, but overall I'm glad I watched both.  It was an interesting experiment.  The conclusion, for me, is that BBC shows are almost always better than the American remakes (I say almost because I haven't seen EVERY remake so I don't know if that's always the case but I did much, MUCH prefer the BBC version of Life on Mars).

[Bebecat]

OT...but has anyone seen the Australian series called "Secrets and Lies"? It is about the murder of a young boy and how the man who found his body becomes the prime suspect...very suspenseful. And...US version starts March 1st lol. I can't help but fear it won't be as good, although Juliette Lewis plays a detective, she is always good, Imo.

[MaryPatShelby]

I just bought the Broadchurch DVDs and watched episode one this morning, which only confirmed my belief that it was better. I was moved emotionally so many times, which did not happen with Gracepoint. Upon relfection, I think a lot of it has to do with the two actresses playing Beth - the American actress just left me cold, and seemed cold, while Jodie Whittaker played Beth with so many more emotional beats, and her face was much more expressive.

[GreyBunny]

Humans live messy lives; most of us don't exist inside neatly organized stories and I think that's part of what the writers were trying to capture.

 

People do have messy lives but the storytellers have a responsibility to frame that messiness in a way that keeps the story moving forward.  In Gracepoint they failed spectacularly.  They just showed a bunch of nonsense that acted as useless filler - the drugs being no big deal even to the cops, Mark stalling the cops for about 4 episodes and then turning around and complaining they're not doing their jobs, and a whole host of other things that got dropped or went nowhere and often had no consequences.

[staveDarsky]

I watched the two "dinner with the Millers" scenes side by side online. The odd line was dropped here and there between BC and GP and the allowed reaction times were shorter. Those niggly edits lowered the impact of scenes in GP.

[Whimsy]

I watched the two "dinner with the Millers" scenes side by side online. The odd line was dropped here and there between BC and GP and the allowed reaction times were shorter. Those niggly edits lowered the impact of scenes in GP.

Where'd you find that?  I just tried to google it and I couldn't track it down but I would like to see it.

[staveDarsky]

Sorry for the mislead. I had each opened in separate browser windows side-by-side. There isn't a website that's put them together as far as I know.

[BookWoman56]

I had binge-watched Broadchurch over a few days and then was curious enough to watch Gracepoint as well. Broadchurch intrigued me even though I found many of the characters infuriating at times. Gracepoint, OTOH, just fell flat to me, and while some of the flatness was watching the same scenes with much of the same dialogue, but played by different actors, a lot of my being meh on it was the acting. I didn't really have a problem with Anna Gunn, although Ellie in Broadchurch seemed more down to earth but also possessing a sense of humor. However, Michael Pena as Danny's father just did not work. In the first episode, particularly, he did not pull off grieving, horrified father at all. It was very much watching an actor struggle to pretend to be grieving and horrified. I've liked Pena in other roles, but his performance was just not convincing in any way here. The young newspaper apprentice character also seemed miscast; he did not seem energetic or determined enough to care about getting a scoop on the identity of the victim. It's hard to articulate, but IMO the characters in Gracepoint lacked the intensity and charm of the Broadchurch originals, so that I couldn't get invested enough in them to care one way or another how it ended. 

[Voice of Joy]

I recently binge watched Gracepoint because I loved Broadchurch so much.  

Sadly, I was disappointed. Tennett is always good, but I felt he made such an effort to make this Hardy a little different, the vulnerability of the character never showed through like it did on the original series, thus he was a bit less likeable.  And I did so miss that thick Scottish "Milllaaaahhh!"

The rest of the cast was inferior in my opinion, with the exception of the vicar and the kayaking character (Nolte).  They were far better than the original series characters to me.  I couldn't stand Paul in Broadchurch and felt this actor brought a humanity and sympathy to the man of cloth that Paul lacked.

Gunn is an excellent actress, but I felt she was horribly miscast in this role.  Her angular, suburban American skinny wife look did not serve the character at all.  I never believed she was a cop for a minute.  She had an impossible task, really, after Olivia Coleman's triumph in the original, but she wasn't right for the role, either.

The new Latimers didn't work for me.  For whatever reason, I lacked an emotional response to their suffering.

I did like the change in the plot, because it made more sense to me, and I liked the parallel of Ellie allowing Paul to take the blame and protect their child, just like Hardy's wife let Hardy take the fall in the previous case to protect their daughter.

Short version:  it was inferior to the original.  Not surprised, because it was a tough act to follow.