Broad brush-off
Leak? Call a brickie
WHITNEY on EastEnders’ Mr or Miss Walford had quite a contest: “We’ve the few women questioning Isn’t it a bit swimwear round. scene, Kim sexist?” Very next a skimpy hands topless Vincent the one that pair of briefs:“It’s shows off your assets.” EastEnders. Championing double standards since 1985. SO long, then, Broadchurch. “This stupid place with its stupid cliffs,” as David Tennant’s narky DI Alec Hardy put it.
I’ll miss much of it, after a third and final series that recovered from a toe-stubbingly dreadful second run but was never going to match the impact of the first.
Credit where it’s due, though, because writer Chris Chibnall’s creation will go down as one of the great crime dramas.
The Hardy and Olivia Colman’s DS Ellie Miller double act is up there with Crockett and Tubbs, Regan and Carter, and Tyler and Hunt.
Grieving parents Mark and Beth Latimer’s touching final scenes, where they agreed to separate, finally justified their inclusion in series three.
And the twist that there were two, unsuspected attackers – rope salesman Leo who’d groomed young Michael – in Trish’s rape was a neat, blind-siding ding reveal. Enough praise, however. Broadchurchdchurch III was far from flawless. Too many episodes got sidetracked by the local paper’s managerial shenanigans.
Lenny Henry’s shop owner Ed Burnett was never going to be the culprit – for the simple fact he’s Lenny ruddy Henry.
And the recurring theme was that all men are either snivelling, pathetic saddos or sex-obsessed cavemen.
Honestly, i t was l i ke watching EastEnders at times.
Add that to the fallacy that everyone with a pair of testicles was lusting after Trish and it became a depressing watch.
As good as Broadchurch is, it’s no Line of Duty, a show whose characters are far more complex and which, 24 hours earlier, put itself on a different level with an extraordinary, 21-minute interrogation scene.
Hardy and Miller, by contrast, wrapped up Trish’s rape by themselves (Wessex Police clearly don’t believe in evening shift p patterns for CID) ) in the equivalentq of the “travel by map” scene from The Muppets 2011 film.
One moment, Hardy was opening a filing cabinet of “statements and alibis” and Miller was plonking a pile of “timelines of movement and forensic reports” on his desk, the next they’d somehow sussed Michael did it.
All too hurried, but not as unrealistic as Trish’s final scene, with ex Ian sheepishly asking: “Say if it’s inappropriate, but what if I brought round a takeaway later? I was thinking maybe a Chinese?”
Yes, Ian. She’s just found out she was raped by a teenager in cahoots with a violent, serial rapist who’d whacked her out with a cricket bat and who you’d got to install spyware on her laptop so you could snoop on her every move.
And you think you can make up for it with kung po chicken? Trish: “That could work.” Pork balls. Complete and utter, sweet and sour, pork balls. TIPPING Point geniuses of the week. Ben Shephard: “A brickie is a name for a person of which profession?” Contestant: “Plumber.” Shephard: “Which continent’s space agency has its headquarters in