This is directly relevant to my wife's and my reading of the David Tennant & Olivia Coleman vehicle Broadchurch.

David Tennant's character is notably very bad at his job; that's why he got exiled to a backwater town. He bungled his last case so badly it made national news. In an American police procedural, we would either have some mitigating explanation for his failure, or at least some gritty vice or personal demon that was the real reason he got demoted.

In Broadchurch, Tennant's character just sucks at his job. Every episode of the show conforms to a formula where he gets suspicious of one of the other characters in the show and we spend the episode wasting time while it's finally determined that the suspect of the week is actually innocent. I have to say, it makes for entertaining television. It also resulted in my wife and I chorusing aloud, every episode, "he's SO BAD at his job!!"

(Minor Broadchurch spoilers) At the end when he finally catches the big bad, it's not because of anything he did. A coincidence and some carelessness on the part of the big bad lead to the mystery being solved. Also, every other character on the show had already been ruled out.

Since watching it we've kept a lookout for protagonists who embody the "everyman in way over his head who accomplished virtually nothing himself" archetype. It's fun to know Adams held forth on the very subject.

"David Tennant's character is notably very bad at his job; that's why he got exiled to a backwater town."

Worth noting that in Hot Fuzz (also featuring Olivia Coleman!) the main character is exiled to a rural location for being too good at his job.

> Every episode of the show conforms to a formula where he gets suspicious of one of the other characters in the show and we spend the episode wasting time while it's finally determined that the suspect of the week is actually innocent.

Something like this applies in the UK Midsomer Murders. Specifically, in the episodes where one of the suspects has a prior criminal record, they always get grief from Inspector Barnaby's current sidekick but are then proven innocent of the current crime. However, if an old police colleague from Barnaby's past offers to help, they are always guilty of something.

Hold on, wasn't the flak he got for the case before the show started actually because he was covering for his wife (who was also working on the case)? She was having an affair and left the evidence in her car where it was stolen. He didn't say anything so their daughter wouldn't know, and took the fall for the case's failure, even though it wasn't his fault at all.

I didn't quite get the same read on the show you did. It seemed like the dynamic was that Olivia Coleman couldn't imagine anyone she knew being the killer, contrasted against Tennant being aggressively willing to suspect anyone, which is how they were able to rule the various suspects out.

“In an American police procedural, we would either have…”

In the first minutes of the American show “Keen Eddie”, the titular character bungles a project so badly that he is exiled to London.

It unfortunately lasted only one season.

Today I learned that I would make a terrible detective!

When I watched Broadchurch with my family, I thought he was doing a fine job at getting to the bottom of the case. Goes to show much crime drama I watch.

I see now that Tennant's character's actions are a plot device to reveal the drama amongst the other characters, not the workings of a good detective.

This very good description makes it sound like a comedy, which it absolutely isn't, although I note that Olivia Colman got her break in dark comedy Peep Show.

That reminds me a lot of slow horses as well.

The game Disco Elysium is kind of like this. Just know that the game is 99% reading and rolling dice.

That sounds awfully similar to our own reading of Department Q. I'll watch it too.

Sounds like a much-more-fleshed-out version of Inspector Gadget!

My take is quite different. EVERYONE in Broadchurch is at least nearly-criminally incompetent.

"Ooh, I'm an investigative detective in a homicide. I think I'll forget myself and beat up somebody in lockup!"

"What's that, evidence? I think I'll withhold it for minor personal reasons."

"Hey, there's a pedophile investigation going on. I think I'll lie about my 'alone time' with a teenage boy to EVERYONE, just to avoid arousing suspicion..."

Tennant's advantage is that, in season one, he's not emotionally tied up in this completely tangled small town. He's got some professional competencies over Miller, but not many.