Gracepoint

As a raw police procedural, Gracepoint thrives thanks to legitimately unsettling twists, sharp revelations that focus our attention on new suspects. But it's in Carver and Miller’s competing worldviews that the show finds something more substantial to work with.

Gracepoint is artsy both in its painterly look and in its treatment. The story rolls out with daring forbearance, almost as if it's transpiring in real time.

At the end of each episode, you want to see what will happen in the next one. For a murder mystery, that’s a pretty good start.

Gunn and Tennant are flat-out fantastic in Gracepoint. The supporting cast, including Nick Nolte at maximum haggard levels, is compelling. They’re so good, it might take a while to notice that you’ve seen this story before, even if you haven’t seen “Broadchurch.”

Even with an occasional made-for-TV-movie flatness, Gracepoint seems poignant and complex and even frightening enough to sustain interest all over again.

A smart, well-written and absorbing psychological drama about the effects of a horrible crime on a close-knit small town.

The sense of loss, shock and mourning is still artfully conveyed. American TV rarely depicts the emotional fallout after a murder, preferring to focus on the investigation. Here, both elements are equally important. But Tennant seems tired, and you can understand why. He’s been all over this shore before.

The pilot so closely resembles the original, it renders the endeavor redundant.

Gracepoint is a good show--not great, but good.

Mr. Tennant (here playing an American) and Anna Gunn of “Breaking Bad” pair quite well.... If you’re in search of a show to curl up with as the weather grows colder, you could do worse.

A compelling mystery, it maintains a measured pace, inviting viewers’ patience.

Gracepoint is good enough to keep you guessing, but not good enough to keep you from shrugging.

For those many millions of broadcast TV watchers who never saw Broadchurch ... Gracepoint still has plenty of potential to be a real treat; it’s clearly something different from the maxed-capacity morgues of prime time’s many procedural crime dramas. It’s a better quality of murder mystery all around.

Realizing that my pleas for viewers to seek out the original will only go so far, I'll say that after watching the first seven episodes of Gracepoint, it's worth a look. If it's your first look. Otherwise, perhaps not. It takes many episodes for the plot ever to diverge, and for the most part, any changes aren't for the better. (And that's especially true for most of the casting.)

The first couple of Gracepoint episodes follow the same plot [as "Broadchurch"]--even some of the same camera angles in some scenes--with such stringency it will be difficult for "Broadchurch" viewers to avoid a sense that this new show is a rerun.... For the murder-mystery fans [who haven't seen "Broadchurch"] among them, Gracepoint is fine, but they’d be better off seeking out the superior "Broadchurch."

The series--adapted by Anya Epstein and Dan Futterman, with a premiere written by “Broadchurch” creator Chris Chibnall--is competently executed.... Yet while it’s hard to pinpoint, Gracepoint can’t help but feel as if something significant has been lost in translation.

Gracepoint is not a poorly made television show: There’s attractive cinematography and solid acting throughout. But the energy levels are off, as though those involved were all waiting for someone else to step up and pull the whole production out of a stupor.

The problem is that Gracepoint lacks the expression and personality of either "The Killing" or "Broadchurch."

Through seven episodes there is nothing wildly different about the two shows, but Gracepoint has a facsimile’s faded quality. Something about it is less sharp, less bright, less keen, and you are left with a washed-out flier you have seen before.

For the moment, set aside comparisons to the original. Standing on its own, Gracepoint is too slow, too disconnected from its supposed California setting, and too indifferently — and in some cases, badly — cast. As for its length, if there is a good artistic justification for adding two more hours to a story that was perfectly told in eight, Gracepoint does not provide it.

There's no sense of spontaneity, no sharp thrill of discovery (or fear). Gracepoint just plods along, right straight into the surging Pacific tide.

If only these flashes of actorly conviction were enough to elevate Gracepoint above the rank of pretender. As is, the series is a competent yet unexceptional genre exercise that only rises above its limitations in its opening passages.

The 10-part limited series is a serviceable mystery-slash-melodrama about small-town life, small-town minds and small-town secrets, but nothing really to write home about.

Limp and gratuitous dialogue often borders on melodrama, and none of the characters are particularly compelling or interesting. [Sep/Oct 2014, p.83]

What anchored Broadchurch was its harrowing sense of loss, how it played out with the parents and changed the small coastal town where a number of people had come to start new lives. Much of that is either missing or lost in translation.

Gracepoint certainly has higher [ambitions] than many broadcast crime dramas. ... [But Tennant] is nowhere near as good in Gracepoint as he is in Broadchurch. ... [And] the coastal-town milieu of Gracepoint, so vivid in and integral to Broadchurch, seems just as fake as Tennant's accent.

It’s like a remix of a great song with added instruments and increased volume, smothering what worked about the original. ... Perhaps Gracepoint will work better for those who have not seen Broadchurch. I can’t honestly imagine anyone who has seen the original preferring this one.