Other Doctor Lives: Broadchurch: Series 2, Episode 6 (2015)

*Written in 2018*

Another episode that’s pretty all right. Things happen, new information is discovered, and it’s probably the most Jodie Whittaker has had to do in at least half a season. If they can keep it up for a couple more episodes, series 2 might shape up to be fairly decent.

An explosive new witness comes forward for the defense in the trial, and their testimony leads to a tense witness-stand scene featuring another character as well. Revelations made there send out ripples in more ways than one, and the Latimer family is rocked by what happens. Hardy and Ellie take a new approach to try and get the answers they need in Sandbrook.

It’s hard to get into too much about the trial without spoilers, but overall, it’s not too bad. I still find Sharon’s browbeating ridiculous (it feels like she does way too much positing when she’s supposed to be questioning, and everyone—Jocelyn included—is always left just sputtering at it,) but there’s some good dramatic headway here. It gets into pretty sensitive territory with the first witness, and while you can clearly see the dominoes that fell into place after Sharon is finished with the second witness on the stand, we get a bit more of a sense of her aims that are slightly less “agent of chaos” than what we’ve seen before.

Furthermore, what happens with these witnesses has effects on multiple characters, and situations that have been spinning their wheels for most of the season start moving, for better or worse. In particular, the Latimers are hit hard, and Whittaker finally has an opportunity for some heavy spotlight scenes that demonstrate how much Beth is reeling from this. After the last few episodes being so light on Beth, it’s nice to see Whittaker get a new chance to stretch her acting muscles a bit.

The Sandbrook side is decent as well. Ellie and Hardy do a good job working together in this episode, finding new angles from which to approach various persons of interest. We obviously don’t yet know for sure who the killer was in this case, but we do get a really concrete piece of information here, and a major clue is discovered that will likely fuel the direction of the investigation as they move toward the end of the season.

*Written in 2025*

All right—on rewatch, I realized that, while Hardy and Ellie are still an effective team, this episode is more about Ellie following through on things Hardy asks her to check out. That’s because Hardy is out of action for a big chunk of the episode, dealing with the health issues that have been plaguing him since series 1. We see him investigating with Ellie at the start of the episode, but for the whole second half, Ellie is following leads in Hardy’s absence. As such, it’s a lighter episode for David Tennant.

One bit I do want to mention, though, is a short scene where Hardy calls his daughter. We’re a step one from series 1, where he left her a very awkward voice mail—she picks up this time, and we get to hear his side of the conversation. But as with that earlier scene, I really like it. It immediately shows a side of Hardy we don’t normally see, and it’s nice to get a brief glimpse of him in “dad mode.”