New Fox series pairs great actors, poor writing
Small town murder-mysteries aren’t anything ground-breaking. The corrupted cop that’s new in town, the wholehearted partner that’s too emotionally invested, shady small-town family dynamics — these things are exactly what makes FOX’s new show “Gracepoint” feel like something you’ve seen before.
The mini-series “Gracepoint” opens with the murder of a 12-year-old boy, Danny Solano, which tears apart a small, picturesque town in northern California called Gracepoint. The show was adapted from the British series “Broadchurch,” further proving it is nothing new.
The show stars David Tennant of “Doctor Who” and Anna Gunn of “Breaking Bad” as detectives Emmet Carver and Ellie Miller who are in charge of Solano’s murder investigation.
When Carver swoops in as the hotshot new detective and takes the job that Miller, a well-loved mom in town, was expecting to get, the tension between the two never goes away. It creates the good-cop-bad-cop dynamic that seems to come along with every mystery story, and FOX has officially played this out.
The mystery aspect of “Gracepoint” is supposed to be the center focus, but is quickly trumped by how emotionally charged the characters are. FOX did a wonderful job providing a picture of a tight-knit community that is slowly falling to pieces.
In “Gracepoint,” Miller has a long history and a tight relationship with the victim’s family, creating an empathetic take on the investigating. While this conflict of interest would never happen in real life, it gives Gunn and Tennant more reasons to argue on camera.
If you were to turn off the sound, it would be easy to think of “Gracepoint” as an award winning show. The people behind “Gracepoint” are not the problem — it’s the writing.
The acting and cinematography are phenomenal, but it’s impossible for the actors to go above and beyond when the script is nothing but clichéd. When things like “no one here wants Gracepoint to turn into another word for murder” are said at town hall meetings, it’s difficult to take it seriously.
The amount of drama packed into one episode doesn’t hit you until you see that the “previously on 'Gracepoint'” segment takes several minutes to relay the high points of the last episode. As a mini-series, “Gracepoint” has squeezed a plot that could have been more comfortably told over multiple seasons into 10 45-minute episodes.
The thing that FOX doesn’t understand is that every single character doesn’t need a backstory. The reporter that you hear little about doesn’t need dysfunctional parents. Mrs. Solano doesn’t need to reminisce about the college scholarship that she lost after becoming a teen mom. It’s sloppy, and little details like this added nothing to the show and made it impossible to remember any character’s name.
In addition to minor details, half of the suspects in “Gracepoint” could have been cut only to make the show easier to follow. When 10 to 15 plot twists are packed into one episode, it’s hard for the viewer to keep track of what exactly is going on. But this insane amount of detail is exactly what FOX expects will draw viewers after it airs Thursday night at 9 p.m.
It feels hypocritical writing this, because while I’m pointing out the flaws, I have to admit I watched five episodes in one day. I could have stopped at the pilot, but I was anxious to know what was going to happen next. “Gracepoint” may not be the best of its kind, but it gets the job done.