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Irish actor Richard Dormer as chief Andersen |
I was intrigued by the storyline of the new 25 million pound SkyAtlantic thriller series " Fortitude"
For a mystery thriller set is an isolated Norwegian mining community where " every one has a job, everyone is comfortably off so there is no risk of crime" sounds like the start to one of those in vogue Scandinavia noir series we have all come to enjoy and love over the past couple of years
Fortitude it would seem, is quite, quite different.
Set in a strangely multicultural Arctic town where only four of the cast of around fifteen are supposed to be Scandinavian , the first episode boasts political shenanigans over a proposed " ice Hotel" which will save the town from financial ruin, a killer polar bear, adultery, a mysterious brunette with a gun, a drunk with a secret, a strange research facility , a fair bit of full frontal male nudity and a murder amid a whole lot of ice and snow.
I didn't know just what to make of episode one. It was brooding and ever so slightly confusing, with the majority of characters , being somewhat unsympathetic if not a little " odd" in nature.
We have the somewhat driven town Governer (Sophie Grabel) and her odd untrusting relationship with her hospitalized husband. A mysterious police chief ( Richard Dormer) who looks as though he's covered up a crime, an unhappily and bickering married couple (Nicholas Pinnick & Jessica Raine) with a son with a mystery sickness, and a brusque British doctor ( Phoebe Nicolls) who is something to do with animal testing.
oh and let's not forget a British drunk( Michael Gambon) who cries a lot and Stanley Tucci who has flown in by the Met Police to help solve the murder
Have you got all that mother?
I have a strange feeling the whole series will take a few odd turns away from the tried and tested usual Scandinavian Noir it purports to be........
Watch this space.........