Video Proof of the Striking Similarities Between 'Gracepoint' and Its U.K. Predecessor 'Broadchurch'

The makers and cast of the Broadchurch reboot Gracepoint have sworn till they are blue in the face that the British and American versions of the murder mystery are different enough that people can enjoy binging on both. But if you happened to be one of the few folks who caught both last year’s BBC America broadcast and Thursday night’s premiere on Fox, contemplating who killed Danny a second time around might have left you with a severe case of dead-ja vu.

When the two pilots are viewed side by side, as in this clip reel, which Yahoo TV pieced together, they appear startlingly similar. Sure, they are not identical shot for shot — the parents are on different sides of the bed, for instance, and one shot flashes to the police station while the other focuses on the local newsroom — but the filmmakers do rely on a lot of the same eerie imagery: crashing waves, a ticking clock, an empty Main Street, an empty bed in what is obviously a child’s room, blood dripping from small fingers, a face-first view over a dangerous cliff’s edge.

[Related: 'Gracepoint' Promises to Be More Than a Mere 'Broadchurch' Copycat]

Broadchurch and Gracepoint also both use Danny’s dad’s morning stroll through the friendly seaside village as a seemingly innocuous way of introducing the audience to the main characters/residents. Considering Gracepoint's official hashtag is #SuspectEveryone, we'll assume that, as in the original, this long shot basically amounts to a perp walk of future interrogation subjects. Danny's mom discovering the body after running through traffic, the detectives surveying the body at the beach, and the uncomfortable press conference starring David Tennant also similarly unfold on both sides of the video.

Not that they didn’t warn you. Back in July at the Television Critics Association’s annual summer press tour event in Los Angeles, Gracepoint executive producer Carolyn Bernstein revealed that the early episodes are so similar to those of Broadchurch because she and writer/showrunner Dan Futterman didn’t want to fix scripts that were not broken.

She explained, “We did consider starting in a different place for the first episode, but the first episode of Broadchurch was so well done. Why contort ourselves when that was the smartest way to go?”

But eventually Gracepoint will diverge, a point that the show’s cast and crew made over and over again at the show’s premiere Tuesday in Los Angeles. Kevin Zegers (Gossip Girl), who portrays the nephew of the detective played by Anna Gunn (Breaking Bad) and an ambitious-to-a-fault cub reporter, told Yahoo TV on the red carpet, “As a whole, it is very different. You can’t put together an almost entirely new cast and end up with the same show. We were always encouraged to do our own thing. I never felt confined by the fear that we had to live up to the original. Although I hope we made something that will be as successful and as well-received.”

[Related: Meet ‘Gracepoint’ Star Virginia Kull]

Jacki Weaver, the two-time Oscar nominee tackling the part of Gracepoint's suspicious trailer-park resident who is never without her pup or her smokes, didn't feel the need to toe the company's “not a copycat” line or debate how different is different enough. She was quick to point out that even if it were a word-for-word, shot-for-shot retelling, as a stage regular she wouldn't see any shame in it. “People constantly stage the classics, and every production feels different because of how actors interpret material, a director's choices, and many other factors, even though the source material is the same every time.”

She also jokingly pointed out that taking a foreign hit and (broad)casting it in your own image — as was the case with The Killing, Ugly Betty, Homeland, Shameless, Three’s Company, American Idol, and The Tomorrow People, to name a few — “is a time-honored tradition in American TV. Even All in the Family, one of the hugest successes in television history and a classically iconic American show, was a complete pinch of a British show called Till Death Us Do Part.” Weaver, who admitted that she did not watch Broadchurch until she took the part on Gracepoint, added, “Love of an original is not tarnished if you also enjoy a remake. There’s room in our hearts for both.”

Gracepoint airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on Fox.