SummaryThe murder of a British scientist in the small, Arctic town of Fortitude is its first violent crime. Sheriff Dan Anderssen (Richard Dormer) must work with British DCI Morton Caldwell (Stanley Tucci).
SummaryThe murder of a British scientist in the small, Arctic town of Fortitude is its first violent crime. Sheriff Dan Anderssen (Richard Dormer) must work with British DCI Morton Caldwell (Stanley Tucci).
Fortitude's allure is its off-puttingness; those making a home there must indeed be tenacious, and with Fortitude, the same tenacity is required of its viewers.
This show works in so many ways. The acting is superb, the writing wonderful, and the Arctic setting is persuasive--an inhabited island attempting to reinvent itself through the construction of a hotel built into the ice. The multi-faceted plot keeps the viewer wondering what in the world is going on until the final episode. A science-fiction element to the plot heightens the mystery. Though the acting is uniformly good, I find myself especially taken with the characters played by Michael Gambon and Stanley Tucci.
A wonderfully original and intriguing series. Great acting, cinematography and excellently constructed. The complex narrative was handled perfectly to maintain a sense of intrigue and foreboding throughout - highly recommended.
It’s still an open question whether its central murder mystery can sustain a number of false leads and other mis-directions for a full 12 hours. But the resplendent panoramic visuals are a show in themselves. So the bigger your HD screen the better, with Fortitude’s overriding whodunit gradually firming its grip while those icy, snowy vistas stay strong.
Fortitude has a lot going for it, but it lacks a unifying focus or center of gravity. Scenes seem slapped together without much forethought and with little connective tissue.
Simply being cryptic, though, doesn’t really advance the story, and at a some point, as hypnotic as all those snowy backdrops are, it’s easy to grow impatient with the assiduous, disjointed nature of the plotting.
Fortitude is wonderfully weird, atmospheric and dark. With its equally strange and cold inhabitants, it captures the barren and hostile environment of living in remote wilderness and cautiously invites you to imagine living amongst them and experiencing the ambiguity of the next instalment of this eerie mystery. I love it.
This show had huge potential that was thrown away in the second half of this season. I watched the first 5 or so episodes with baited breath, and was treated to one mysterious turn after another. And then things got unreal. Over the top is another way to put it. Concept and acting was fine, but then plot revelations started leaning toward the outer limits. Irrational reactions to both personal issues, as well outside events, made this plot less and less believable. And.....believability is what makes a sci fi mystery enjoyable (to me). As always, Stanley Tucci was superb. Hate to see him go.
For those who remember Twin Peaks, the wonderful, weird, engaging, psycho-thriller from David Lynch,.... well Fortitude isn't one of those. No really likeable characters except for Alena and the investigator, DCI Morton, and a number of real life fails, ...perhaps its the unrelenting bleakness and cold. However, you'd think that as more than half the cast are supposed to be be Icelandic-Nordic-Russian types, you'd think they might be used to the conditions
Minor fail 1: A highly competent, stoic physician and medical researcher and late baby boomer, names her daughter 'Shirley', a 40's- 50's name, ...really!?
Major fail 1: Said Dr. Allardyce doesn't notice that her daughter is becoming morbidly obese over time to the point that it is life threatening, at the hands of a psychopathic 'feeder'. Very unlikely!
This series isn't Twin Peaks Nor is it Lost (before it got ridiculous), The Wire or Broadchurch. At Episode 7, I'm giving up
Fortitude lacks a coherent plot and the storyline that it has is contrived and annoying. The characters are undeveloped and un-engaging. It seems as though the writers tried to superimpose humanity on them by creating an absurd degree of emotional turmoil for every main character that manifested in soap opera revelations and melodramatic confrontations and speeches at many points in each episode. Because the characters uniformly lack pathos, it just felt like an embarrassing display of emotion without context. It also made this cast of fine actors appear to be overacting much of the time. Points for the visual experience only.