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 Ok so here's it. Fortitude is a new British hour-long psychological drama mystery thriller-type thing airing on Pivot, whatever that is, in America and Sky Atlantic in the UK on Thursdays (I believe at the same time). It's set on a teeny town (population 713) on a glacier in the Arctic Circle, in view of the Northern Lights. Up there in the picture from left to right we got whatsherface from The Killing (the original, not that AMC abomination) as the governor of the town planning to open an ice hotel inside of the glacier to attract tourists, Chrissy Eccleston as a biologist at the town's Arctic Research Facility who believes he's discovered a mysterious carcass in the glacier, Mickey Gambon as an old man named Henry who is dying of liver cancer and who opens up the series rather memorably, and Stanley Tucci as the one big movie star lead every prestige drama needs, also an American cop working for the London Metropolitan Police sent to investigate a violent murder. There's also the guy who played Beric Dondarrion in GoT as the chief of police and a buttload of other townspeople; it's another in the Twin Peaks/Broadchurch mould. It's created and written by Low Winter Sun's Simon Donald, but don't hold that against it. The first two episodes are out and they're excellent. The scenery is beautiful and the large cast is solid across the board. There's a definite Twin Peaks vibe, with some odd surreal moments and Tucci in very much the Dale Cooper role. It has a rather wry sense of humour at times and I am kind of in love with the way it uses scene transitions. There's 12 episodes and depending on how it paces itself I think it's a serious contender for one of the year's great dramas. So Thursdays, 9pm in the UK and 10 in the US, Sky Atlantic and Pivot (Google says it's a channel 'for millennials'. ugh, sorry guys). You can also stream at least the first episode on the Pivot website. Escobarbarian fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Feb 2, 2015 |
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Feb 2, 2015 23:23
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 14:47 |
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I was a little let down by this one after all the rave reviews, but I'm fascinated enough to stick with it. The actors, much like those in 'Twin Peaks' I guess, are a little inconsistent. The professionals like Tucci, Gambon and the Treadaway that isn't Dr.Frankenstein (Who knew there were two?) are all solid but some of the locals, like the Norwegian sheriff were pretty stilted and soapy; making this seem more like a cheap production than the cable competitor it clearly wants to be. The scene transitions you mentioned were a little more hit and miss for me, moving with occasional grace but just as often stomping abjectly into a new sequence. Something that didn't help the fact that the first hour of the show is perhaps a little too baffling for its own good. I'm all for lived-in characters with pasts we gradually discover as we go along, but this was a little much for me. I spent most of my attention in the early scenes figuring out who was who instead of observing the intricacies of the interaction itself. A one time problem perhaps, but it makes it a hard pilot to recommend to more casual viewers; it's far from the 'Broadchurch on Ice' it has been billed as in that regard. All that being said, there was a lot to like: the setting, the way they shot the setting, the levels of complexity already at play in the mystery (It isn't a simple murder) and the hints of something larger and stranger going on out in the snow with the cannibalistic animals, tortured pigs and breathing dinosaur bones were all quite effective. I just hope that going forward the show figures out how to make the pieces between these great moments a little more palatable, but i'll be there to find out.
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Feb 2, 2015 23:38
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Oh, hey, look, you can stream the first episode on YouTube right now too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxX9dPKir9E
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Feb 3, 2015 00:35
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That might be because the 'local' sheriff is an Irishman doing a bad accent.
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Feb 3, 2015 00:36
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That probably didn't help, but the character over all wasn't great. The scene between him and the waitress in the interrogation room was woeful. Two flat characters awkwardly talking around an event entirely for our benefit. Tucci's talk about fish was more intriguing than that supposedly tense and mysterious encounter.
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Feb 3, 2015 01:07
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 14:47 |
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Anyone still watching? DCI Morton and The Thing are doing a fine job of holding my attention, although I'm pretty annoyed they shot the former.
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Mar 30, 2015 10:10
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