Gracepoint seems to have the makings of a hit. The TV drama’s impressive cast includes British favorite David Tennant, Emmy-winner Anna Gunn, and Oscar nominees Nick Nolte and Jacki Weaver. The show’s premise seems brave and intriguing: a small-town murder mystery surrounding the puzzling death of a twelve year-old boy. The series’s showrunner, Chris Chibnall, is an acclaimed English screenwriter and playwright, most notable for creating UK television phenomenon Broadchurch.

In fact, Gracepoint is the American adaptation of Broadchurch, and it relies so heavily on its source material that it becomes hard to treat the two shows as separate entities. Although plenty of British shows have been remade for the States, few adaptations have kept almost everything the same, only switching the occasional name and face. The show plays more like a polished knock-off of Broadchurch than an artful reinterpretation, and though Gracepoint does have quite a few strengths, this lack of originality spoils them.

First-time viewers will likely be enticed by Gracepoint’s central mystery, and even fans of Broadchurch could be captivated a second time around. Gracepoint, California, a close-knit coastal community, is shaken by the discovery of a young boy’s body on the beach. The body is identified as that of Danny Solano (Nikolas Filipovic), the local plumber’s son, and the death is deemed a homicide. In the face of tragedy, detectives Emmett Carver (David Tennant) and Ellie Miller (Anna Gunn) are left with the task of tracking down the culprit in an outwardly innocent town. Everyone in Gracepoint becomes a person of interest—the killer might be Danny’s dad (Michael Peña), the town’s priest (Kevin Rankin), even the boy’s best friend (Jack Irvine). The show’s impressive cast forms an ensemble of convincing and compelling suspects. Nolte assumes his role as a local shop owner and wildlife recorder with ease, and he layers his character’s natural coarseness with a hint of something darker. Kevin Zegers, as an overeager reporter, and Alisen Down, as his no-nonsense boss, make an entertaining team. As for Weaver, her character, Susan Wright, does nothing in the first episode but menacingly stare at police proceedings. Even in her brief glances, she makes a haunting impression.

While this mystery gives the show some solid momentum, the circumstances surrounding the murder seem somewhat unnatural in an American context. Gracepoint is meant to be a town that is large enough to have thriving businesses and tourism but small enough that everyone knows and trusts each other. The Solano family doesn’t worry about Danny’s uncharacteristic absence at breakfast, assuming he has gone to a program before school. It isn’t until later in the day that anyone even tries to call Danny or realizes that he’s gone missing. This type of ease seems unrealistic considering Gracepoint’s location: Maybe this type of trusting community exists in secluded parts of the United States, but it probably wouldn’t be found, as Gracepoint wants viewers to believe, somewhere so close to San Francisco. Keeping the investigation credibly small could also pose a problem. In the span of the pilot, Danny Solano’s story only catches the attention of a reporter at a large newspaper in San Francisco. Thinking ahead, Danny’s death could plausibly become a national sensation in America. It seems unrealistic that the search for his murderer would mainly fall on two small-town cops.

Perhaps Gracepoint’s best asset is Anna Gunn, who plays good-natured detective Ellie Miller. Miller must work to find Danny’s killer with her new boss Emmett Carver, an outsider who has stolen the promotion she had been eyeing. Just off her noteworthy work on Breaking Bad, Gunn’s performance strikes fresh notes for Ellie, making her coolly confident yet self-aware. Gunn’s work is even more impressive considering the widespread praise that surrounded her Broadchurch counterpart, Olivia Colman. Gunn makes her Ellie somewhat more composed than Colman’s, but the character remains compassionate and relatable. Ellie serves as an important link between the procedural and provincial aspects of the show, so it’s comforting to see someone as talented as Gunn in that position. Gunn stands as one of the only unique elements of Gracepoint. The strength of her performance has the potential to render Gracepoint a success.

Opposite Gunn, David Tennant stars as Emmett Carver, a newcomer to Gracepoint with a troubled past and a harsh attitude. Although Tennant reprises his Broadchurch role remarkably well with a different name and accent, Tennant still serves as a constant reminder of Gracepoint’s failure to uniquely adapt Broadchurch. Casting Tennant again may have seemed like a natural choice considering his familiarity with the material, but his presence, by no fault of his own, weighs down on the show like an anchor. One issue stems from the underdevelopment of his backstory. While a show’s first episode shouldn’t be expected to reveal a character’s entire history, Carver’s past receives only a few seconds of explanation, with hardly any allusion to the possible psychological scars that might endure from a previous murder case. A further exploration of this backstory would have provided a much needed layer of vulnerability to his character that otherwise comes off as gruff, rude, and unlikable. Lacking the depth that immediately enhanced his Broadchurch equivalent, Emmett Carver struggles to connect with the rest of the show’s characters and remains one of the most bizarre aspects of the U.S. adaptation. Especially amongst reports that he will return to Broadchurch for its second season, trying to place Tennant in the worlds of the two series becomes a mind-numbing task.

If Gracepoint continues to follow Broadchurch’s narrative so closely, it will be impossible for the writers to create suspense in the search for the killer. Fox executives have suggested that Gracepoint’s hunt will lead to a culprit different from the one identified in the UK series. This choice makes sense considering that a quick Google search holds the key to who killed Danny in the original series. Contrary to this logic, though, nearly everything in Gracepoint’s pilot unfolds as it did in Broadchurch’s first episode. If these parallels continue, opportunities will be lost to formulate a unique, plausible story, and the eventual reveal of a different killer will come off as an ill-conceived afterthought.

In a television climate where American viewers can easily stream international shows like Broadchurch, Fox’s decision to change little about the original series seems misguided. Still, the series boasts a first-rate cast, and hopefully over time, Tennant, a fine actor, will integrate better with the rest of Gracepoint’s cast. If the show’s mystery can be skillfully shifted to close in on a new killer, the show could be successful. All the same, there is still very little keeping viewers from catching up on Broadchurch instead.