The premise of a depressing police series featuring cops who care too much and are heavily invested in their work is not a new one. Dozens of series focus on hard-working police detectives trying to crack cases that are either new to them or have been haunting them for years. In 2013, Chris Chibnall created Broadchurch for ITV in the U.K. The series ran three different series from 2013 to 2017 and focused on a small coastal town in Dorset that is shaken by a brutal crime: the death of an 11-year-old boy.
The show deals with the family’s grief, the town’s response, and media speculation as to who could have committed such a heinous act. The series cast Olivia Colman and David Tennant as the two detectives on the case, providing two famous British actors as the leads who carried the series. The first series received immediate praise, especially for its writing and performances. Chibnall was tasked with writing an American version for Fox that would air the following year. However, the new series, called Gracepoint, did not have the same impact as its predecessor and quickly became forgotten.
‘Broadchurch’ Hadn’t Been Made Widely Available Yet in the U.S.
People didn’t know about the connection
Gracepoint premiered in October 2014, less than two years after the first series of Broadchurch aired. The new series cast David Tennant in the same role as he had in the original, albeit with a different name. Tennant also spoke with an American accent in Gracepoint compared to his native British accent. Fox had hoped to make it something on its own, rather than building on the massive success for an audience that knew about it.
Before the series was released, it was stated that Gracepoint would differ from Broadchurch in important ways, the main one being the ending of the series. Broadchurch had been a hit in the U.K., but it hadn’t been made widely available in the U.S. that year. It would hit Netflix in 2014, a few months before Gracepoint premiered. However, Netflix was not as popular as it is now, meaning that the streaming audience for it then was not as large as anything the streamer can offer today. Plus, even if Gracepoint was touted as a remake of a British series, not many people had heard of it, let alone seen it.
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Anna Gunn’s Polarizing Role on ‘Breaking Bad’ Didn’t Help
She was coming off her recognizable and controversial role yet
Anna Gunn was cast as Detective Ellie Miller in Gracepoint, the role that Colman played in the original. Gunn had just finished her career-defining run on Breaking Bad. Her role as Skyler White earned her two Emmy Awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award. While she was one of the more well-known dramatic television stars at the time, that may have actually hurt Gracepoint.
Skyler was an immensely polarizing character in Breaking Bad. Many fans disliked her character immensely because she went against the protagonist of the series, her husband Walter. While plenty sympathized with the character because she ultimately was trying to protect her son by getting away from Walter, he was the main character of the series and people enjoyed watching Bryan Cranston in the role too much to really consider what the character was doing. Therefore, Skyler took a lot of unwarranted hatred.
It’s hard to see Anna Gunn and not think of Skyler, so her version of Ellie Miller was always tainted by the memory of Skyler. Casting Tennant in the role of Emmett Carver didn’t really help her. While some fans would have known Tennant from playing the Tenth Doctor on Doctor Who, his reach across to the States wasn’t as well-known, meaning his name didn’t draw a crowd in its own right in the U.S.
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The Remake Aired Alongside Some Tough Competition
It’s hard to go up against the NFL and Chuck Lorre
Gracepoint had a tremendous cast besides Gunn and Tennant. Michael Peña and Virginia Kull star as the grieving parents of the deceased boy. Nick Nolte, Jacki Weaver, Josh Hamilton, Kevin Rankin, Kevin Zegers, and Jessica Lucas all co-star in the series, mainly as townspeople of Gracepoint. Each actor gave the series depth and provided a broader look at the population of the town. It was also important to understand who from the town might be responsible for killing a young boy.
Gracepoint aired on Fox on Thursday in October 2014. Unfortunately, it ran against some steep competition. During the first portion of its run, it was up against Thursday Night Football on CBS, which typically always took the rating battle of the time slot. Those who weren’t watching the NFL were likely watching Season 4 of Scandal, which was still pulling in nearly 10 million viewers each week. After Thursday Night Football stopped on CBS, Two and a Half Men picked up its normal time slot, as it aired its final season. It was watched by over 11 million viewers on average, proving Chuck Lorre’s power.
In comparison, Gracepoint‘s highest-rated episode was its premiere, which earned 4.76 million viewers. It came in at a hard time and couldn’t find an audience. The subject matter was incredibly hard to watch as well, making it a tough sell for people to not watch football, a famous sitcom, or Kerry Washington slay as Olivia Pope.
Perhaps Gracepoint was rushed and came out too early. If it had waited in its release, it might have fared better. Tennant has continued to have a brilliant career in both the U.S. and the U.K., and a failed detective series has not hurt him at all. However, Gunn’s career has never quite lived up to her Breaking Bad days.
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