When it comes to TV mysteries, short is sweet.
If you harbor any doubt, visit BBC America's "Broadchurch," a whodunit so compelling that its British run became the most tweeted-about program in the country's history.
The story takes place in an idyllic seaside town where you can't walk down Main Street without hailing every other person, where a grade-school soccer game is a major sporting event and a fender bender in front of the local pub is deemed high crime.
Then an 11-year-old boy's corpse washes up on the shore and every resident — the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker — becomes a suspect.
In an American production, the characters would most likely be forced to wallow in grief and suspicion for at least 22 hours. But "Broadchurch" clocks in at a manageable eight hours with a definite — and delicious — conclusion.
The limited running time is partly the result of economics. Most producers working overseas can't gather the kind of money to back a longer run. But there's also the notion that many viewers won't invest the time in a case where the payoff seems to always be in the distant future.
"Any more than eight episodes would have been a huge ask for an audience watching a lot of trauma," said Jodie Whittaker, who plays the victim's mourning mother. "There's humor and other such wonderful moments in it, but the basis is the most unimaginable event, and I think eight hours serves that piece. To drag it on longer, it didn't need it."
The producers of AMC's "The Killing" learned the hard way the dangers of keeping a mystery in the unsolved files too long. The series' opening episode in 2011 drew 4.6 million viewers. But when the creative team opted not to point out the killer in the original 13 episodes, fans flew into a murderous rage. The second-season opener drew a disappointing 1.6 million people, and this summer's third-season premiere wasn't much better.
