Other Doctor Lives: Broadchurch: Series 3, Episode 1 (2017)

*Written in 2018*

Here’s the start of the third and final season of Broadchurch. First impressions—looks like it could be pretty different and will possibly involve quite a bit less of the town of Broadchurch altogether. Some frustrating parts, but I’m interested to see where things are going.

It’s now been three years since Danny’s death. Hardy and Ellie are still working together, and they’re called in to investigate a rape in a nearby town. The victim, Trish, struggles to provide details on her attacker, and the detectives use care in trying to gather more information.

I’ll start with things I like. I like that Trish is an ordinary-looking middle-aged woman—rape is about power, not sex, and there isn’t one look or “type” for a victim. I really like Ellie’s interactions with her, at the same time that I understand Hardy cautioning her not to get too personally involved. We’ve started to meet a few of the characters involved in this plot, and they include a friend of Trish’s played by Sarah Parish, who I’ll always remember as a giant spider empress from Doctor Who but who I’ve since gotten to know as a pretty excellent Beatrice in a modern-day adaptation of Much Ado about Nothing.

A few things, though. As much as I dislike it, I absolutely understand the inclusion of someone at the police station who suspects Trish might be making a false allegation—after all, rampant doubt among far too many police officers is a major contributor to rape being so underreported, and it would have been too sanguine of the show to have everyone automatically believe her. However, it bugs me that the only officer we see voicing that suspicion is a young Black woman. Also, despite a lot of sensitivity displayed when directly interacting with Trish, a lot of people are hung up on the fact that she waited two whole days before going to the police (seriously?), and I don’t like Hardy’s preoccupation with determining whether or not the attacker was a stranger, as if that’s the only way this rapist would pose an ongoing threat in the area. Again, the attitudes themselves are depressingly realistic, but I’m going to need to see them dealt with if this storyline is going to work for me.

For a while, I thought we might not be getting anything actually in Broadchurch at all, spending the entire episode on Ellie, Hardy, and the investigation. However, towards the end, we do get a small amount of Beth. Between seasons, she’s gotten involved in work helping survivors, and while she has her worries about whether or not she’s really cut out for it, it’s a development that promises to tie her to the Trish storyline. So, even though there’s very little of her here, it does seem that Jodie Whittaker will play a good-sized role in what looks to be the A-plot of the season.

*Written in 2025*

Before I get to David Tennant/Hardy, one more quick note on Beth. We see her reach out to Trish in this episode, leaving her a voicemail when she doesn’t pick up. I really like how completely neutral Beth’s voicemail is. She doesn’t name the organization she works for or allude to the rape in any way, instead just saying that she thinks Trish has been expecting a call from her. Trish’s privacy is wholly protected, and Beth’s tone is pleasant and friendly throughout, leaving the ball in her court.

Okay, onto Hardy. We’ve seen before that he can be incredibly sensitive and gentle when he needs to be, and he does that nicely here. Given the nature of the case, he has no problem letting Ellie take the lead in dealing with Trish, and when he does speak with her, he searches for answers without pushing too hard. When she’s unable to give details about where the assault took place, he asks, “You can’t remember, or you don’t want to tell us right now?”, with an unspoken air that he would understand either answer. Tennant always does well with these types of scenes, and he’s very effective here.

But like I said in my original post, I don’t like Hardy’s fixation on whether or not the rapist was a stranger to Trish. He doesn’t come out and say it, but it does kind of come across as, “Well, there are ‘rapists’ and ‘RAPISTS,’ and this guy could be a real RAPIST!” Since the overwhelming majority of rapists are known to their victims, this angle still seems to rely on the Dateline-esque sensationalism of stranger rape.

Side note: it’s been too long since I watched this season, so I can’t remember how the case actually shakes out, although some of the details that emerge in this episode would point more toward the likelihood of the rapist being someone Trish knows. I still don’t like this emphasis, though.