If you live in the UK you already knew you’d get the chance to see Broadchurch, a miniseries about “the events and investigation that unfold in a small coastal town after the murder of a young boy,” a bit later this year. And now we’ve found out that it’s been picked up by BBC America to air in the States as well. Why is that news relevant to our American readers? Only because Doctor Who‘s David Tennant and Arthur Darvill are both in it. We thought you’d like to know.
Tennant will play one of the detectives investigating the case of the murdered boy, while Darvill will play the town priest. The second detective is to be played by Olivia Colman, whom I best know as PC Doris Thatcher from Hot Fuzz, though she’s appeared in a ton of stuff before and since. Interestingly, IMDB notes that Colman played someone’s mother in the first Matt Smith (and, by extension, Arthur Darvill) episode of Doctor Who, though I don’t remember her character.
The eight-part miniseries, written by Doctor Who scribe Chris Chibnall, will air on ITV sometime this year and, to take a wild guess, on BBC America a month or so later at the most? I’ve been unable to find any confirmed information on the British release date, and the American one’s not been set yet, but BBC America tends to not lag behind quite so much as, say, PBS does (looking at you, Downton Abbey). Regardless, you can be sure we’ll be keeping track of this Doctor Who sort of-reunion.
Source: themarysue.com – Broadchurch picked up by BBC America
Olivia Colman appears to have been cast in Broadchurch, according to her agent’s website. The drama, to be produced by Kudos for ITV, has been created by Chris Chibnall based on the BBC Four hit Danish detective series The Killing. It will be directed by James Strong and produced by Richard Stokes. David Tennant has been strongly linked to the lead role by a number of press and industry sources.