Apparently I was the only person not entranced, intrigued or even remotely interested in the outcome of Broadchurch last night

In fact I don't understand why anyone was interested or why the media went gaga about the idea that the nation was agog etc. So closely had I been following the serial that even when the killer revealed himself, via a couple of very vague clues and an anticlimactic and wholly inexplicable confession, I was at a loss to know who he was.

I confess I found the serial derivative in conception, no more than competently acted, poorly researched and flawed in police procedures. For instance; can anyone tell me of any recent detective drama that was not based wholly or in part on the conflict between two major characters or indeed one that did not feature the murder of a child? Or why the victim's father was permitted access to the cells when his son's killer was in custody? I cannot imagine that being allowed in any circumstances whatsoever.

The drama might have been made much more interesting had D.I Former Dr Who passed away during his all too short sojourn in hospital and the detecting left to his sidekick who would then have had to arrest her own husband. Or not, as the case may be.

You see I have always thought that one of the elemants of a good drama is that the audience should find some empathy with one or more of the leading characters. But here I found none at all. I did not give a damn about any of them. I understand there is to be another series but I'm at a loss to see how. Maybe if D.I. Scruffybeard has to retire on health grounds and we follow him in his daily battle with impoverishment, boredom and failing health set in some rural shithole or other. I can quite see that and would watch it for sure. I am making ITV a present of the idea gratis.

Okay so perhaps my jaundiced view of Broadchurch is because I had watched the latest episode of Endeavour the night before. I feel uneasy even mentioning the two productions in the same blog entry, never mind the same breath. I sat entranced from the beginning to end of the episode. It wasn't just the period setting which invoked a far sunnier time. A time before the endless caterwauling of pop music assaulted our eardrums, before drunken louts paraded on every street after dark and before incoherent reality television wannabees forced themselves on our senses. Nor indeed the delightfully sinister Gothic aspect of the Bodleian Library into the dark bowels of which Endeavour was led by the clever unravelling of an operatic anagram.

Perhaps it was the subtle construction of the script which so accurately suggested mid twentieth century England in a fashion regrettably rare nowadays. Perhaps it was also the carefully nuanced references to Morse himself and his future colleagues.
I wholeheartedly recommend that there should be a complete rerun of Morse after Endeavour giving the abysmal Lewis early retirement in the process. Failing that perhaps an offshoot detailing the Inspector Fred Thursday Mysteries starring the impeccable Roger Allam. Another free idea for ITV.