Main Menu

Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 09:04:41 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Fortitude (Sky Atlantic)

Started by CaledonianGonzo, January 30, 2015, 12:24:17 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

CaledonianGonzo

New Svalbard set drama that debuted last night with a feature-length premiere starring a roster of big names and with, fairly obviously, a whole heap of money thrown at it.  The pitch was presumably Twin Peaks meets Broadchurch meets The Killing.

On last nights evidence, also an unconvincing, laughable mess.  Maybe the (hinted at)
Spoiler alert
supernatural
[close]
element might come to the fore to explain some of the more baffling story strands, but nothing with polar bears in it should be this annoying and boring.

Milverton

Sorry to say this, but I have to. Eccleston was pretty awful, with all his emoting and stuff. I thought he was trying far too hard.

It didn't hold my attention until the end and I resolved to go to IMDb to check out the plot today. If it's all supernatural and that I'll give it another go at the weekend. If not I'll probably give it a miss.

It's not as shit as Ascension though.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

That's a shame. It gets a really good write up on The AV Club site, which left me intrigued to see it.

Alberon

It's hard to see if this is going to be great or an absolute steaming pile of cack yet. The feature length episode certainly held my attention, but it's impossible to know quite where its going yet. I just hope it knows.

The boy's mother is very inconsistant in this. First
Spoiler alert
she's demanding her comatose son gets airlifted and later on she's happy to have him subjected to an experimental treatment while stuffed in a giant test tube.
[close]

Anyhoo, for me it has done enough to get me back to watch the next couple to see where the show is going.

CaledonianGonzo

Quote from: Alberon on January 30, 2015, 05:44:58 PM

The boy's mother is very inconsistant in this. First
Spoiler alert
she's demanding her comatose son gets airlifted and later on she's happy to have him subjected to an experimental treatment while stuffed in a giant test tube.
[close]


Not to mention going out to the metal concert for just long enough for her kid to get severe frostbite.

Milverton

I watched it again today, and I liked it a lot more second time around. I suppose watching it without an iPad on my knee and seeing the whole episode instead of half of it helped too.

Those huge glass picture windows in many of the houses seem a lot better suited to the Caribbean than the Arctic Circle.

CaledonianGonzo

Still not much better, I'm afraid.  Stanley Tucci is great and there were fewer eye-rolly momements, but at the minute this show's got an uphill battle on its hands.

Alberon

Yeah that was an hour spent spinning its wheels. Very little plot or character development.

Tucci seems to be the friendly guy willing to work with everyone, while the sheriff never misses a chance to act shifty. Which leads me to guess Tucci is the evil guy and the sheriff the good one.

Maybe it's the polar bears, but I do worry this is going to turn into a 'Lost' type show that chucks everything into the pot with no clue how to resolve any of it.

Alberon

Another episode where I'm hard pressed to point to any actual plot development. In fact, it's positively glacial!

One of the show's creator on Den of Geek did say all questions will be answered by the end of the season and it's not going to end up a 'Lost' style mess, but I'm not sure I'll still be around for that.

CaledonianGonzo

Has everyone else thrown in the towel with this, then?

I was at a loose end last night and got all caught up, but I still feel like I probably shouldn't have bothered.

amnesiac

yeah man, watch EP01, slightly pissed and following the twitter reaction, polar bears, some kid having the pox, it was all too much. I have it on Series Link but fuck, it's tedious.

wooders1978

Gets better but not one of the greats I am afraid, watchable enough though imo

CaledonianGonzo



Spoiler alert
And so I vomited into the gaping stomach of mum
[close]

CaledonianGonzo

So I'm guessing no one else has seen *that* scene yet....

Black Ship

Quote from: CaledonianGonzo on March 06, 2015, 12:41:26 PM
So I'm guessing no one else has seen *that* scene yet....

I have.

What. The Everliving. Fuck.

Brunette Romana 2

Me too.

I've only vaguely been watching. Mr BR2 has it on, and I've just thought of it as, "mildly gloomy murder mystery set in a cold place with Dumbledore".

But this week, it's certainly taken a turn into cuckoo territory.

Even before she
Spoiler alert
puked into Mum's intestines
[close]
, I'm thinking, really?!
Spoiler alert
A fork?!!!! A fork!!
[close]
Ick!

Mobius

I don't watch this show but can someone please explain what happened in the latest episode because you're all being very vague and it sounds exciting.

Also are the Twin Peaks comparisons on the money? Because I'll give it a crack if so.

batwings

Quote from: Mobius on March 08, 2015, 11:00:14 AM
I don't watch this show but can someone please explain what happened in the latest episode because you're all being very vague and it sounds exciting.


Spoiler alert
Big lass, wife of a creepy feeder, gets possessed/infected by virus/parasites from a thawed Woolly Mammoth (possibly), goes nuts, knocks mother out, straddles her, stabs her with fork, rips her skin open and gobs into the body cavity. Credits.
[close]

QuoteAlso are the Twin Peaks comparisons on the money? Because I'll give it a crack if so.

More like a bleak Broadchurch that seems to be veering off into David Cronenberg territory.

Mobius

That sounds fucking brilliant, cheers.

Dropshadow

Yes. So the "big" lass upchucks the contents of her guts into the just-ripped-open stomach of her own, old mum (who is - or was, I should say - the "Mustardess" from I'm Alan Partridge)?. Say what you like about the series so far, but you've got to admit that there's not many shows that feature that sort of thing much, are there? Wait - didn't the young boy leave one of his fingernails inside the body of the guy he ripped apart? Maybe the evil spirit of the wooly mammoth is going to make the people it's "affecting" install their victims with lots of varied bits for the purpose of eventually assembling a whole, manufactured, Frankenstein's-monster-style zombie slave? I really don't know, but - fuck it - I'm going to keep watching to find out.

Puce Moment

This isn't very helpful but I made it as far as about 40mins into the first episode and had to turn it off. Fucking hell. My patience was sorely tested.

CaledonianGonzo

Yeah - despite that fact that I'll definitely tune into this on Thursday to find out what happens next, I still don't think it's very good.  I know the fact that everyone is odd and unlikable is partly the point, but that can still make it a chore to sit through.  Tucci's obviously meant to be the audience surrogate everyman, but he's too distant and flaw-free a protagonist to really get behind.

Also - have they just forgotten about the pig in the hyperbaric chamber?

Milverton


Puce Moment

I just found it very soapy. I don't mind unlikeable at all - but this seemed to be cherry-picking from various pedigree TV dramas and in the end it gets a bit 'camel is a horse designed by committee'. A mess basically.

A bit of The Killing, a bit of Fargo here, a smattering of The Bridge, and why not have some Twin Peaks for good measure - and a dollop of Northern Exposure to finish it all off.

But some of the scenes were so daytime TV I couldn't believe they thought that was ok for the pilot.

Looks amazing though.

Milverton

Anybody worked out what the fuck this is really about yet?

CaledonianGonzo

It's a metaphor for a beautiful, pure, indigenous white community that throws open the doors to multiculturalism and thus falls prey to terrorism and jihadism.

The mammoth carcass is the Prophet Muhammad.

Milverton

Quote from: CaledonianGonzo on March 20, 2015, 08:27:49 PM
It's a metaphor for a beautiful, pure, indigenous white community that throws open the doors to multiculturalism and thus falls prey to terrorism and jihadism.

The mammoth carcass is the Prophet Muhammad.

My God. I think you're onto something. Ice-Is. The polar bear got beheaded too.

CaledonianGonzo

So - tonight is the "big" finale.  At least for those of us who've stuck with it.  And - fair play to it - it has certainly thrown a few curveballs the way of the unsuspecting viewer.  If it's never been actually enjoyable, it's often been perplexing enough for me to want to see what the criminy is going on.  And it certainly looks very pretty.

Does anyone think that
Spoiler alert
there'll be no surivors at all as the whole town succumbs to a bad dose of the botfly
[close]
?

Or - my take - that it'll just be
Spoiler alert
Dan, Elena and wee Curly Sue left unscathed by the time the end credits roll
[close]
.

Alberon

Quote from: CaledonianGonzo on April 09, 2015, 04:53:31 PM
So - tonight is the "big" finale.  At least for those of us who've stuck with it.  And - fair play to it - it has certainly thrown a few curveballs the way of the unsuspecting viewer.  If it's never been actually enjoyable, it's often been perplexing enough for me to want to see what the criminy is going on.  And it certainly looks very pretty.

Does anyone think that
Spoiler alert
there'll be no surivors at all as the whole town succumbs to a bad dose of the botfly
[close]
?

Or - my take - that it'll just be
Spoiler alert
Dan, Elena and wee Curly Sue left unscathed by the time the end credits roll
[close]
.

Well, it's been renewed for a second run, so I think your guesses are unlikely.

CaledonianGonzo

Last I heard any second season would be a True Detective-esque new cast / new location deal.