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I heard rave reviews about this season as well, and because we like Fortitude, and its murder in a cold, isolated environment, I suggested we watch this. To be honest, much of its style and mood and theme borrows from the Svalbard set show. As it starts with a unique location, the vibes of being set during the "30 days of night" time period, and has a lot of interesting, challenging characters in this remote town of Ennis, Alaska, a mix of mining folk & local indigenous people, centered on the utter asshole Chief of Police, Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster, Contact).
But in the end, I didn't find any pay-off. It ended as all these creepy, psychological, pseudo-procedural crime thrillers do -- with a bunch of possibly supernatural, possibly extraordinary crimes hinted at and jump-scared out the wazoo, but explained via (admittedly satisfying) mundane human murder.
So, on the first day of night, we are presented with a bunch (I get you are embracing the You of being You, but someday you should consider the vocabulary you choose to use) of scientists isolated in a self-sufficient lab outside town. They are going about their activities when one does something weird. Cut to a time period later where a delivery man finds the place empty, the classic "they left in the middle of everything" scene. Danvers is called in, tense situation, find the missing scientists. Secondary character Eve Navarro (Kali Reis, Asphalt City), all tattoos, piercings and MMA fighter body, is introduced as a state trooper with a beef with Danvers.
The missing scientists, who are later found dead, in a "mountain of frozen flesh". They are naked and their faces depict shockingly terrified deaths. Also, at the lab, a severed tongue is found, the tongue of Annie Kowtok (Nivi Pedersen, Borgen; fascinating! a Greenlandic actor/director), an indigenous woman who was murdered but the investigation never went anywhere and Navarro blames Danvers. So now there is a new, horrific case and they are seemingly connected.
As these shows do, much of the time is spent establishing the characters and the setting. And as these shows do, there is constant eerie imagery such as the ghosts that Navarro's mentally unstable sister Julia (Aka Niviâna, Borgen; also Greenlandic) sees, or the scarred polar bear who calmly wanders through town or Navarro's flashbacks to her deployment overseas or... its a technique that ten or more years ago I loved, but tire of easily these days. I want this imagery to have distinct meaning, but all too often it is played for cheap jump scares and "cool scenes" which generally don't pay much into the plot. And as usual, season closers dismiss almost all of them.
If anything, the show excels at the characters. Chief Danvers is a damaged almost sociopathic cop. Navarro is a damaged distinctly loyal woman trapped in two worlds. Captain Hank Prior (John Hawkes, Martha Marcy May Marlene) is a damaged, sad father who wants nothing more than to have Danvers gone. His son Peter (Finn Bennett, The Nevers) is smart but is on 24/7 duty due to Danvers and his marriage is suffering for it, and yet he trusts her more than his father. Even all the secondary and supporting characters are interesting and incredibly well played.
Don't forget to mention the minimal role of Christopher Eccleston who also played a role in "Fortitude". And Issa López, the showrunner who was responsible for writing and directing many of the episodes, and did a brilliant job of keeping the tone and visuals consistent. And the setting, shot in Alaska and Iceland being actually authentic cold, but still falling into the usual "cold environment" folly of "if its's -20 C why can't I see their breath?"
I just wish I got more out of the show as a whole. If this had been my first rodeo, with season long murder investigations in cold climates with unending damaged main characters, I would have revelled but...
Kent's view. I agree with pretty much everything he said, but he was more impressed than I was.
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