Warning: Spoiler Alert
Although “Limited Television Series,” have yet to catch on in the United States, they are a staple “Across The Pond,” as British television have created some brilliant results over the years. Although American TV had great results with “Mini-Series” from the mid-seventies until the mid-eighties, mediocre productions doomed the genre to the scrap-heap. Periodically, a network will try to revive them, but usually they go down in crash and burn situations, as the CBS series “Hostages,” did last autumn.
This year Fox airs what they are labeling a “Ten-Part Event Series,” based on a British original and starring the same man who played the lead in the British series “Broadchurch,” now playing an American version of his character. The Fox series, “Gracepoint,” set in Gracepoint, California, a coastal community along the north coast, revolves around the murder of a 12-year-old boy, a life-long resident of the tight-knit community and the grief and suspicion following the event.
David Tennant, best known to many Americans as one of the more popular incarnations of “Doctor Who,” plays Detective Emmett Carver, new to the Gracepoint police force after a long career in San Francisco. He’s teamed up with Detective Ellie Miller (Breaking Bad’s Anna Gunn) to find the murderer of 12-year-old Danny Solano (Nikolas Filipovic,) found dead on a stretch of beach by two of the town’s officers.
Danny’s mother Beth’s, (Victoria Kull) overcome with grief and self-blame, suspecting anybody and everybody behind Danny’s murder, including her husband Mark Solano (Michael Pena.) Other suspects include Mark’s assistant in his plumbing company Vince Novik, (Stephen Louis Grush) whose like a member of the Solano family, with a secretive past. Also under suspicion’s newcomer Susan Wright, (Jacki Weaver) a strange woman who could just be an eccentric hermit, or possibly very evil.
Also in the cast is an elderly man named Jack Reinhold (Nick Nolte) who seems like the unofficial town historian, knowing all the tales of the town’s past. Don’t expect to see the Nolte from “48 Hours,” or “North Dallas Forty.” The former Screen-Hunk resemble a cross between a not too jolly Santa Claus and an old sailor.
Although Tennant’s “American Accent,” fades in and out, the story looks strong and intriguing and being a limited series we will get all the answers to our questions at the end of ten weeks. Whether it deserves another invite back next fall, will get decided at the same time.
Gracepoint Premiers On Thursday October 2, at 9:00pm on Fox.
