Community, Seriality, and the State of the Nation - British and Irish Television Series in the 21st Century

The very first scene to introduce the Broadchurch community1 shows Mark Latimer (Andrew Buchan), a plumber, on his way to work through the town centre, greeting people and being greeted, obviously well integrated and respected (E1/S1, 00:02). The first scene at the police station works along the same lines: Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller, returning from a holiday, greets the team warmly and has a present and a warm word or joke for everyone (E1/S1, 00:03). The police and its first main representative, Ellie, are thus shown to be an organic community in themselves, displaying the same friendliness and fellowship as the town. One of the central techniques of the series, however, is to counter every moment of idyllic cohesion with a contrast that destabilises it. In the two examples named above, Mark’s happy start into the day is subverted when his son Danny’s (Oskar McNamara) body is found on the beach, and Ellie’s return to work is soon spoilt for her when she hears that she has not got the promotion she has been hoping for but that she has a new boss instead, Detective Inspector Alec Hardy. While these two contrasts at the very beginning serve the function to introduce the main plot of the murder mystery and the central constellation of the detectives, the technique of creating and then destabilising the picture of an idyllic community is used throughout the series to show that high standards always involve human failures and fallibility, and that they exert pressure on the people of the community. The standards of sexual morality, and marital fidelity in particular, are violated several times, most significantly by Mark Latimer, who spent the night in which his son was killed with the local hotel owner Becca (Simone McAullay), and in the third series by the rape victim Trish (Julie Hesmondhalgh) and her best friend’s husband Jim (Mark Bazeley).

In his review in the Times , Andrew Billen suggests a contrast between such individual cases of misconduct and the community as a whole: “ Broadchurch was a series that believed in Broadchurch, the town, and in the concept of community. […] Yet although communally the town demonstrates strength and love, individually its members are weak and venal.” However, upon closer inspection, the community is revealed to be just as fallible as its individual members. Just as these individuals at times show great social responsibility and moral consciousness, the community has moments of impressive solidarity and cohesion. In series one, the townspeople show their support for the bereaved parents with flowers, food and a condolence book, by joining them in the reconstruction of the crime (S1/E5, 00:01) and, in the last episode, with a long line of signal fires, ignited one after the other across the shoreline (S1/E8, 00:48). The symbolism of firelight in the dark, giving hope and warmth, and of the connection and silent communication across great distances, shows the emotional unity and empathy of the town. At the end of the second series, the main representatives of the town community jointly expel Joe (Matthew Gravelle), Danny’s murderer, from the town after he has been sentenced ‘not guilty’ at court (S2/E8, 00:42). In the third series, the community shows their support for the rape victims in a football match and in a line of people at the harbour carrying lights in the dark “to reclaim the night” (Billen). However, this willingness of the community to act on behalf of their members sometimes leads to rash, irrational, and unjust actions. This becomes particularly evident in series one, when the media discover that an elderly shop owner and sea brigade teacher was in prison for sleeping with a teenager many years ago. The townspeople are stirred up into a witch hunt, which leads to the suicide of the shop owner. The fact that the main persecutors of the deceased are merrily drinking beer at his funeral shows a certain hypocritical, self-righteous tendency in the community (S1/E6, 00:09).

Besides such extreme cases of mob action, the town also exerts more subtle pressures on the individual. While the traditional moral standards of the community provide social coherence, comfort, and stability, they can also limit the freedom of the individual due to fear of moral judgment. Mark Latimer, for example, shows how strongly he feels this pressure when he lies about his alibi for the night Danny was killed. He would rather draw suspicion to himself for the murder of his own son than reveal that he cheated on his wife. Even when questioned under arrest he refuses to tell the truth. When it finally comes out, he tells Alec: “You haven’t lived here, you don’t know how these things stick.” (S1/E3, 00:34) DI Alec Hardy is exasperated by Mark’s decision to rate his reputation in the town higher than his innocence in the face of the law, but during the same episode, when talking to his doctor who is not from Broadchurch, he expresses his own strong dislike of the small-town community: “Small town, everyone watching, I hate it.” (S1/E3, 00:29) In the third series, the rape victims, too, express fear of the community’s judgement, even though they are the victims, not the criminals (S3/E5, 00:04). Besides moral judgement, it is also the ascription of social labels that can put enormous pressure on individuals, as one of the rape victims claims: “I’ll forever be the girl that was raped.” (S3/E6, 00:13) Chloë Latimer (Charlotte Beaumont), too, confesses that although she misses her brother, she feels trapped by always being “the dead boy’s sister” (S1/E6, 00:27). Once a role has been assigned to an individual, it seems difficult to escape it.

All of these problems, daunting as they may be for the individual, are still side effects of a community in which people matter; a community that, despite occasional errors of judgment (both collective and individual), is presented as an inherently well-functioning, traditional, organic entity. The series repeatedly emphasises the responsibility that everyone has for each other and for the community as a whole. At the beginning of the trial of Danny’s murderer in the second series, for example, the prosecuting attorney, Jocelyn (Charlotte Rampling), claims that the outcome of the trial depends upon everyone in the town (S2/E2, 00:21). When, in the third series, the investigation of the rape of Trish brings to light previous cases in which the victims did not report the rapes, social workers and police officers put pressure on the victims to make official statements, implying that it is their responsibility to do everything they can to prevent further sexual assaults (S3/E6 00:12). A visual technique emphasises this connection of all the people in the community: in a number of scenes, the viewer sees different citizens in different places in quick succession, sometimes while the voices or music from the previous scene continues. At the beginning of the first series, for example, DI Alec Hardy gives a press conference at the school, pointing out that “Danny’s life touched many people”, and a number of townspeople are shown watching this speech on TV (S1/E1, 00:44-45). This technique is used for a variety of purposes: it can visually point out the many potential suspects, but it can also show how many people are indeed ‘touched’ by these events and how embedded the suffering individuals are in a community.

However, the foundations of this communal society are shown to be under threat, and this threat grows steadily over the course of the three series. Individuals are increasingly uncertain about the extent of their responsibilities towards the community and about the benefits they receive in return. In the first series, moral support for the bereaved family is strong, but local business owners are also concerned that the crime is affecting the tourist trade and thus their economic profits (S1/E2, 00:06 and S1/E4, 00:07). Becca, the hotel owner, criticises an outspoken shopkeeper for his egotism, but voices similar concerns herself (S1/E1, 00:16). She is quick to use the media attention raised by the murder to present herself in an interview, emphasising that the crime was a “tragic yet isolated event”, and afterwards ruefully asks the vicar: “Did I sound like a complete arsehole?” (S1/E5, 00:12) Thus, economic interests (or Kürwille ) are shown to hamper people’s social and moral concerns (or Wesenswille ). Becca is part of a generation which confronts the challenges of the modern world but still tries to preserve the spirit of the community, giving support on the major occasions when the town rallies together, however there is a younger generation that seems to have a different attitude. Respect for elders and for figures of authority, an integral part of the value system of the traditional community, seems to be on the wane, as can be seen when Alec talks to three young classmates of his daughter, who treat him with barely concealed ridicule (S3/E3, 00:09). Alec has a similar experience when he and Ellie are questioning Leo Humphries (Chris Mason), who turns out to be one of the rapists (S3/E3, 00:05). In both cases, Alec feels compelled to threaten the cocky young men with the full force of his police power.