OBVIOUSLY, democracy is a good thing, or at least, as Churchill noted: “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

So it’s not perfect but it’s the least bad option. Public votes sometimes throw up Trump or Brexit, or other miseries that they have brought throughout history, and millions will react in horror.

However, the horror can be soothed in knowing a democratic system is at work here and so an election will come round again and the damage can be undone.

At least, that’s the theory. If Trump starts a war it will take more than a sensible, reasonable and educated president to put things right. Democracy can churn out some shock results yet it’s the best system we have, but an excellent new series, American Justice (BBC2, Tuesday) raised the question of whether too much democracy could be a bad thing.

In America, the electorate can vote for their local sheriffs, judges and state attorneys. If you look around your neighbourhood and see crime and want some tough action you simply head to the ballot box and vote for the guys who are promising the harshest punishments for offenders.

Forget about using panels, experts and committees to appoint lawmakers and enforcers. Instead, the person who shouts the loudest can win power. And so we have Florida, a state with a terribly high murder rate, and whose people are leaning towards tough-talking state attorneys who say they’ll make no apology for going after the bad guys.

The film was troubling and violent, suggesting Florida – the part rarely seen by golfers and Disney tourists – is in a bad way so who can blame the voters for demanding an extreme response?

But if you vote based on emotion do you get the best result?

You could argue Brexit was based on British insecurity; that Trump’s victory was won from anger; and that Better Together were victorious because of fear.

Emotion and elections don’t mix, but there’s no way to separate them. What you could do instead is stop holding them every five minutes to determine every small detail of life, but that option would require trusting “experts” to make some decisions for us.Who gets to be an “expert”? Hey, let’s have a vote and find out! Last one to the polling station is a rotten egg!

As well as following the rowdy election campaign of Florida’s state attorney, the film trailed Jacksonville police as they attended a gruesome murder at a trailer park, and we got a sad, brutal glimpse of why voters might be tempted to let emotion rule them.

Perhaps it’s better to be ruled by emotion than by ideology because if you blindly follow someone else’s teachings you might find yourself blasting rocks in the Utah desert, fighting for a scrap of attention from your very busy husband. Three Wives, One Husband (C4, Thursday) took us to Rockland, a community of fundamentalist Mormons who have retreated to the desert to blow up rocks so they can clear a space and build themselves a nice little village where, in the hot and dusty isolation, they can revel in polygamy without nasty folk “judging” them.

If you’re a “fundamentalist” Mormon then you believe practices such as polygamy will bring you closer to heaven. From what I saw, it also means the men are brought further from the cooker and kitchen sink.

But I wasn’t annoyed at the men because, be honest, who could blame them? Their religious beliefs mean they get several pretty wives, all of whom seemed careful to cultivate long, flowing hair and constant smiles.

From the smidgeon of information I have about men, I can only assume most would rather like the idea of having various lovely women waiting to serve them and sleep with them.

No, my anger was reserved for these docile women who were falling over themselves to snuggle up to their husbands, gaze at them adoringly, and provide them with constant meals, sex and children.

Oh grow up, you strange puppy-ladies! Stop scratching in the dust of Utah to helping hubby to build his house and then scampering off to the bedroom when he commands – and then scampering out again to let the next wife slip into your warm sheets.

AFTER starting so well, Broadchurch (STV, Monday) is starting to decline. Location is so central to the drama that every crime, every conversation, and every important confidential meeting must take place outside so the camera can capture the yellow cliffs, the blue sea, the sailing clouds, the chattering waterfall and the fairy lights bouncing in the breeze.

Are the local tourist board invited in as script editors? “Yes, we’d really like some more crimes on the sand, and could you pull the camera back a bit to show the cute little beach huts?”

The primacy of location is threatening to edge out any authenticity, particularly this week in a ridiculous scene where all the local rape suspects gathered on the beach for a football game.

Rape Suspect One passes to Rape Suspect Two. Will he nip past Rape Suspect Three and take a shot at goal?

Broadchurch so often gives with one hand and takes with another.

In this series it is making noble, if heavy-handed, attempts to show that women are often judged harshly and treated coldly if they report a rape.

But it then undoes its good work by blundering into the bleak comedy caper of Beach Football With Rape Suspects FC.

This daft game simply wasn’t plausible but it did give the show yet another tiresome opportunity to show us sea, sand and cliffs.

The location is becoming so intrusive that it’s threatening to edge out the one strong and brilliant thing Broadchurch has to offer: the nippy, claustrophobic but gruffly affectionate relationship between Miller and Hardy.

Just tone down the travel show vibes and let us see the story and the people who dare to sully this sun-kissed landscape.