what this series has in common with Central Banking...

A_Different_Drummer

Historians of the future will look back at this rather odd period of history we are in and, I suspect, be most amazed at how the western Central Banks, with the full blessings of the governments they support, decided the "free market" was not working and instead substituted their idea of what a market should be.

Which worked really well .. for THEM .. but hardly anyone else.

And here we see a parallel in the entertainment biz. This lowly reviewer did a review of BROADCHURCH for the IMDb, a review which was constrained only by the fact that I ran out of superlatives, and did not have a thesaurus handy.

BROADCHURCH was brilliant. It was epic.

GRACEPOINT ... not so much.

Somewhere out there is a producer, no doubt sunning himself on his yacht in some exotic port of call as I write this, whose sole claim to historical note will be that he "packaged" this travesty. In other words, that he went to the money guys and said, look, this is a proved project, it did great in the UK, and I have already snagged Tennant, who everyone said was the heart and soul of the original. Fox will pick it up. Foreign sales are in. We will be in profit even before the cameras roll.

OK, said the money guys, but what about Tennant's accent? No problem, was the reply, Tennant will do an American accent. It sounds like a cross between Dallas and the Bronx, but no one will complain. Everyone loves the guy. He used to be Dr. Who, for heavens sakes.

OK, said the money guys, what about the location? No problem, was the reply, we're off to British Columbia. The Canucks have been keeping their dollar way below the Greenback, we will use Canadian extras, all costs will be 20% below the norm, or less. More profit for us.

OK, said the money guys, what about all those Canadian accents in a US production? No problem, was the reply, we have market research showing that only other Canadians can accurately recognize a Canadian accent, Americans are mainly confused by it, they think it may be some part of Vermont no one has ever actually been to.

OK, said the money guys, we're in.

And that, kind reader, is as close as you are ever going to get to how and why this was made. And, coincidentally, it also answers the questions asked here on the IMDb by the earlier reviewers.

score 3/10

A_Different_Drummer 3 October 2014

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3097963/