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Fortitude‘s overhyped first two episodes have left me feeling – Nordic noir? More like Nordic Meh!
This one-off series (which, no doubt if ratings do well will get commissioned for another), is set in a fictional town in Spitsbergen, Svalbard, above the Arctic circle – so, cue a character looking at the Northern Lights in episode one and being surprised by them. Filming was done in both Iceland and, when the character wanted to suffer really extreme cold weather – the UK.
In fact, it snowed heavily in the North on the day the first two episodes premiered and caused a load of travel chaos, so it made me wonder if someone was trying to drum up even more hype for this than the endless trailers we’ve seen!
Expect spoilers in this review, by the way…
The first episode begins with Henry (Michael Gambon) spotting a a polar bear chewing on an unfortunate Billy Pettigrew (Tam Dean Burn), and, whilst looking horrified, aims to shoot the bear, but accidentally hits the man square in the head and blows his brains out. Oops! But don’t despair as local sheriff, Dan Anderssen (Richard Dormer – who has a look of Bryan Cranston about him) appears out of nowhere and tells him to go home and leave it all to him to deal with. Alas, he didn’t do a brilliant job because some kids stumble across the remains three months on, making one of them, Liam Sutter (Darwin Brokenbro), ill.
As we get introduced to the characters, we find out Henry is dying, while Liam’s father, Frank (Nicholas Pinnock), works for search and rescue within the police and is also having an affair with Elena (Verónica Echegui), Governor Hildur Odegard (The Killing‘s Sofie Gråbøl) is concerned with keeping tourism continuing on the glacier, expecting Charlie Stoddart’s (Christopher Eccleston) governmental report will allow her new hotel project to go ahead, but suddenly the grisly discovery of a mysterious diseased carcass might throw all of that out. Meanwhile, Jason Donnelly (Aaron McCusker) and Ronnie Morgan (Johnny Harris) are the two men going about with the carcass remains trying to find out how much it’s worth, even though Stoddart tells them it’s not something they should legally be profiting from.
By the end of the episode, Liam is facing amptutation for frostbitten toes, whilst his mother, Jules (Jessica Raine) suspects Frank is up to no good because he clearly went out and left Liam at home, so she’s assumed the worst… which we know is right because Frank was seen nobbing Elena in private.
Also, it’s worse than that, he’s dead, Jim, dead, Jim, dead, Jim, it’s worse than that… Stoddart’s been murdered! Butchered by a bear, as his stomach looks like it’s erupted all over the place, while and new arrival Vincent (Luke Treadaway) is instantly arrested by the police, even though we know he went to the man’s house with a bottle of wine.
Earlier on, it was rather unnerving to see that when a couple of arctic trekkers are seen by the Frank Sutter and Dan Anderssen, Dan lends one of them his rifle because they are unprepared for the threat of polar bears… and I was unnerved because one of the two men looks more unhinged than a door which has fallen off! I wouldn’t give him a rubber toy gun, never mind one that fires real bullets!
In Fortitude, the communal sauna shows that the residents are not backwards in coming forwards, and there’s also no crime there, because the rules are that you have to have a roof over your head and you have to be able to provide for yourself, so there’s no stealing… and no crime. Well, until now.
Go to page 2 for episode 2.
Episode 2 begins with Hildur giving her long-awaited speech to promote her new hotel – and Fortitude in general, to an expectant crowd – but she cites that fact that Fortitude is “the safest place on Earth” and then finds out that Stoddart’s been offed… so anyone expecting Eccleston to hang about for a whole series, as he just about managed in Doctor Who, sees that he can barely make one episode!
Meanwhile, Henry, who’s dying of liver cancer and should really be in a hospital, thinks it’s a good idea to start a fire in a bar and gets chucked out, but what were the contents of the mysterious letter he was trying to burn? Someone who is undergoing treatment is Liam, and it’s an experimental procedure where he’s placed inside a hyperbaric chamber, but in Dr Allerdyce’s (the never-endingly insanely hot Phoebe Nicholls) research centre, there are risks.
Dan concludes Stoddart can’t have been murdered by a bear. Or maybe it was a clever bear? You know, one that’s smarter than the average bear because he swiped my picnic basket! And more to the point, Allerdyce works out that he’s still alive! EEK! However, assuming the man is dead, Henry makes a call to drop Hildur’s sheriff in it by claiming that he murdered both Charlie and Billy Pettigrew… Oh, but then it works out okay because Charlie dies on the operating table.. so that part’s accidentally truthful.
Jules stumbles across the bad side of a research centre, which is that they also do research into how science can affect non-humans… yes, they perform animal experiments, and it’s not a pretty sight to see a pig outstretched in its own tube, attached to a zillion monitor wires like her own son.
Cop Ingrid (Mia Jexen) breaks into scientist Natalie Yelburton’s (Sienna Guillory) house, who’s seemingly done a runner and the cops need a scapegoat. Naturally, the failed lighting and blood on the floor leads her to believe some bad shit is going down. There’s an eerie hum from the chest freezer… is Natalie dead and in there? No, in fact, she’s not even home. Where can she be? Can she really be responsible for Charlie’s murder?
Someone who’s present, but in the doghouse is Vincent, and a lack of crime in Fortitude, to date, means a lack of lawyers, and while that would normally be a good thing, Vincent needs one. And speaking, instead, with cop Dan and governor Hildur doesn’t exactly constitute a fair jury.
Then, enter Stanley Tucci as DCI Eugene Morton, who comes over by plane making inconsequential chit-chat with Stoddart’s wife, Trish (Chipo Chung), about Lutefiske – a type of fish which used to be cooked in old lady’s urine before society saw sense and now ferments it in ammonia – not that he realises who he’s talking to at first, since, in the airport they collect their bags and he notices as she rips off the flight tag from her baggage and sticks it in the bin. Morton then goes over to it, picks it out of the recepticle, sees that the woman is Charlie’s widow and then casts a look in her direction, with a slightly sorrowful visage that says, “Did I forget to switch the oven off before I left the house?”
Once out of there and talking to the cops, he then reels off a long list of words, that indicates he’s there to investigate the murder on behalf the authorities from the mainland, yet why use five words when – what feels like – 100 will do. Who does he think he is – the new Russell Brand?
We learn that wind chimes out in Fortitude signify the same thing that pampas grass in the garden signifies back home – swingers live there! And Charlie had wind chimes on his house. Wow, amazing! Morton later gets to interview Trish and tells her that her husband was alive for an hour before they realised he was still alive and she, naturally, breaks down in tears.
With the domestic between Frank and Jules causing her to kick him out, he heads for the local motel, but the only room left… is Elena’s. This is turning into a bad soap opera!
At the end of the second episode, Morton deduces Charlie was killed as part of a ritualistic murder rather than a bear (clever or otherwise), and Jason has stayed in Fortitude, while Ronnie has left on the first bus out of Dodge, and panics at the first sign of a cop car.
It’s too early to say whether this will all make for a good series. I want to say yes as it has the ‘Nordic Noir’ twinge to it, but I take each TV series on its merits, and it was good to have two episodes back to back to set the scene. After that, it’s on weekly. However good or bad it gets, there’s plenty of stunning scenery which looks amazing watching in full HD on a 50″ TV.
It was welcome to see Stanley Tucci, but then again he’s just his same, self-satisfied and slightly sarcastic self in which he always behaves.
With the producers wanting to pile on the ‘Nordic Noir’ feeling, they make every other scene last about three hours, and the cast all look at each other in disdain while they moan… but that doesn’t make it the new Borgen or The Bridge. In fact, it feels rather like a dull soap opera at times, and like they’re dumbing it down and aiming for the market who wants to watch a Nordic thriller but without bothering with subtitles.
Fortitude is available to pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD, and the next episode is on Sky Atlantic on Thursday at 9pm.
Overall Score: 5/10
Director: Sam Miller
Producer: Matthew Bird
Screenplay: Simon Donald
Cast:
Dan Anderssen: Richard Dormer
DCI Morton: Stanley Tucci
Henry Tyson: Michael Gambon
Governor Hildur Odegard: Sofie Gråbøl
Professor Stoddart: Christopher Eccleston
Frank Sutter: Nicholas Pinnock
Jules Sutter: Jessica Raine
Elena Ledesma: Verónica Echegui
Jason Donnelly: Aaron McCusker
Ronnie Morgan: Johnny Harris
Natalie Yelburton: Sienna Guillory
Vincent Rattrey: Luke Treadaway
Doctor Allerdyce: Phoebe Nicholls
Markus Huseklepp: Darren Boyd
Eric Odegard: Björn Hlynur Haraldsson
Liam Sutter: Darwin Brokenbro
PC Ingrid: Mia Jexen
Carrie Morgan: Elizabeth Dormer-Phillips
Trish Stoddart: Chipo Chung
Shirley Allerdyce: Jessica Gunning
Petra: Alexandra Moen
Billy Pettigrew: Tam Dean Burn
Odegaard’s PA: Gudmundur Thorvaldsson
Hanna Donnelly: Lara Decaro
Ronnie’s Ex-Wife: Maya Barcot
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.
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