Did you watch Broadchurch? Just about everybody I know was either watching it live or recording it to watch later. People who gave up on it or never started watching it are now trying to catch up on the iPlayer.
The first of its 8 episodes aired in the same week as a thriller got underway on BBC1 and the first of a post-apocalypse action series started on Sky 1. Neither of these got the same audience or had the same effect as Broadchurch.
So why did Broadchurch catch on? First of all, it was shown on a mainstream channel that everybody could see. It was made in the UK in a seaside setting most of us would recognise. The characters were totally believable. There were no super-powers and no zombies. The script was first rate. The acting was excellent. If there was one magic ingredient, it was David Tennant whose screen presence is tremendous, even if he's a bit longer in the tooth than Robert Pattinson. But, above all else, Broadchurch had time to develop: despite being on ITV and therefore with ad breaks, it was a bit like an old-fashioned TV thriller, with new characters revealed and the pieces of the jigsaw gradually coming together.
To be fair, the ending didn't really matter (my money was on Olivia Coleman, Tennant's detective colleague, obviously a twist too far). If I was Pauline Quirk, now that we know there's to be a second series, I'd have my agent parked in the producers' office demanding a major part for her: does she do sinister or what?
At times, I despair of UK telly but then two things happen: I remember trying to watch TV in the US where everything is fitted into 10 minute segments round 'our sponsors' and a series like this comes along - or a documentary like Keeping Britain Alive - the NHS in a Day - on tonight at 9pm on BBC2.
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