Gracepoint Cancelled

Source: Seriable

Ellie Miller returns to our screens next month. If only her Stateside incarnation was so lucky...
FOX have today announced that their mystery drama Gracepoint will not return for a second season in the foreseeable future. The series in question took its lead from iTV's Broadchurch in an unashamedly overt manner, adapting the events of the latter's first season for a U.S. audience - as if they couldn't handle the Devonshire accents of the original piece - whilst throwing in several familiar cast members such as David Tennant (who portrayed one of the iTV1 edition's central protagonists) and iconic characters including Danny Latimer and D.I. Alec Hardy (Tennant).

Much as we'd love to mourn the departure of yet another aspiring small-screen production from our screens, it's safe to say that we'd hardly be alone in attesting that Gracepoint simply lacked the unmistakeable sheen of its inspiration, in no small part due to writer Chris Chibnall (another recurring element of both projects)'s insistence upon telling an uncannily similar tale almost word-for-word (albeit with a slightly altered resolution, though one would be hard pressed to note much in the way of substantial plot deviations barring a scene or two) rather than crafting an entirely new narrative which could utilize previously established constructs such as Hardy in an innovative way so as to allow Stateside viewers who've already watched the immeasurably superior UK version's opening season and series loyalists based in ye old Britannia to view such characters in a refreshingly unexpected light. That the aforementioned US adaptation managed to amass between 3-4 million viewers on a weekly basis across its ten chapters is hardly a feat to be scoffed at, of course, but in the end, we'd wager that the vast majority of the Broadchurch fan-base will now simply shift to the attention to the main event as Season Two beckons, threatening to bring with it heart-wrenching secrets and stirring set-pieces galore. (Checks his watch.) Are we certain that it's not January 5th yet?

For more news on FOX's upcoming TV projects as well as their cinematic counterpart (20th Century Fox)'s plans for the future of the film industry, keep it On-Screen over the Christmas break.