The show opens with a vista that’s achingly familiar for me — though I know it’s shot in British Columbia, that great stock replacement for the Pacific Northwest, it feels like home. The landscape is one of chilly waves, high cliffs, familiar trees; even the grasses look familiar to me, and the long lines of fencing wavering along the edges of the cliffs, the whales off the coastline. Though I’ve watched film and television actually filmed where I live, this feels almost more real. It is a hyperreal, cinematic imagination of my own environment.
I’m watching Gracepoint, the Fox adaptation of Broadchurch, a UK miniseries starring David Tennant (he reprises his role as Detective Emmett Carver in the US series, opposite Anna Gunn as Detective Ellie Miller). The programme is a 10 episode miniseries, though it may be extended to a second series, if the success of the UK version is any indication. Sadly, Gracepoint isn’t getting blockbuster ratings in the US (viewers from the preceding Bones seem to peel off once the hour strikes); it may be that Gracepoint is simply too subtle and grim for US viewers.
There’s much about the show that reminds me of Twin Peaks, the classic short-lived series that revolved around the death of a girl in a small town. Gracepoint opens with a body found on the beach — that of a young boy. Over the course of the series, law enforcement investigate the crime, attempting to figure out who is responsible; while British viewers already know the answer as they’ve watched the whodunit unfold on their side of the Atlantic, US viewers are new to the scene.
Gracepoint is set in a small town somewhere in Northern California, though it’s not specifically identified. Residents of my own small town in Northern California have joked that it’s named for Point Arena, a town just down the coast from us, and have dubbed the show Gracepoint Arena. The show features the familiar trappings of small towns in Northern California; some of the characters even feel familiar to me. They speak with the faint drawl of the Northern California accent, something that may not be detectable to those outside the region unless they’re linguists. The reporter from the “San Francisco Globe” (a transparent version of the San Francisco Chronicle) even has the slightly different urban accent many of us are familiar with, as does Detective Carver — ‘he’s from the city,’ Miller tells a fisherman, who responds ‘I’m sorry,’ without a beat. The towns and phenomena they reference are all familiar, and the area code is, of course, 707.
It’s not just the setting and the place that are familiar, but the environment of small town life. Gracepoint is about a cluster of people brought together by where they live, and while their lives seem like an open book to each other as they’re crammed into a small community where no one has room to breathe, everyone is carrying secrets. Gracepoint is about uncovering those secrets, delving into the dark side of small town life, something residents of small towns are familiar with, while outsiders can’t imagine, thinking of small towns as idylls.
Just as Twin Peaks shattered the illusion of hometown life, so too does Gracepoint, even as the town bills itself as ‘the last American hometown’ for tourists (a key part of the economy, just as they are here ‐ a character slumps at a bar to bemoan the loss of income from tourists scared away by a dead child, while the bartender berates him). This is a show about small towns wet and messy, dark and cold, where alliances are constantly shifting, characters lie to themselves and each other, and the story never seems to be straight; we do not know who is who, and the suspect could be anyone.
The show wisely takes advantage of the landscape as a key setting and component of the story, using the beautiful environment of British Columbia as an important piece of the story. Yet, it’s also brilliantly lit and staged, with fantastic camerawork that adds to the moody feeling and darkness of the text; this, again, may be why the show doesn’t appeal to many viewers in the US, because it’s a departure from the flatly-lit, glossy, ordinary shows that surround them. While shows with actual aesthetic values are starting to gain traction (Hannibal, for example, and some cable offerings), they’re still playing to a niche audience. The patience of networks to see them through and at least give them a fair shake is refreshing, as historically shows with wavering ratings might have been slashed despite their compelling beauty.
Gracepoint explores murder as an act of strange beauty and something that fundamentally shifts a small community as its secrets are uncovered. The moment of discovery on the beach is the instant you flip a log to uncover the writhing centipedes, beetles, and other dark-dwellers beneath; as they scurry for cover, they reveal much about themselves. The residents of Gracepoint are promised that the killer will be found, but also warned that they cannot hide; something they are acutely aware of already in a town where everyone knows everyone, and everyone is familiar with everyone else’s business.
As the episodes unfold, each character’s façade falls away, and we begin to learn ugly, truthful things about even the most seemingly upright of people. There are no innocents in Gracepoint, just as there are none in small towns, either. Everyone has something to hide — the priest, the innkeeper, the daughter, the husband. Everyone watches each other, warily, waiting for evidence that may never come — or that may reveal itself if they wait long enough.
This is not the typical procedural: It is a thoughtful, contemplative look at murder, small towns, and senses of community, with a sharp feeling of realism. It’s acute and painful to watch at times, raw and gritty, yet, at times, powerfully striking. I hope US audiences warm to it, proving me wrong when I theorise that people in the US have no interest in cerebral television and ensuring that viewers get a second series.
Photo by Bureau of Land Management Oregon, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.