Not the Kind of Place to Raise Your Kids

I finished the first season of Fortitude this weekend. An impressive original series set in a remote Arctic island, population 700-something. Mostly miners and people who support the mining town (inn keepers, shopkeepers, cops). It’s in the permafrost, a place where it is illegal to die because there’s no place to bury anyone. It starts with a killing and a discovery, and things go very, very badly from there. A lot of people break the law by dying. The local governor (played by Sofie Gråbøl from the Danish original of The Killing) wants to build a hotel in the glacier, but she comes to realize that perhaps a bigger morgue is what’s called for. The story flirts with science fiction and it is definitely horrific at times, but all somewhat credible. A good cast, including Stanley Tucci as a DI in from London to supervise some investigations and Michael Gambon as an aging photographer battling cancer. Filming of Season 2 is underway in Iceland and I can’t wait to see where they take the story.

We saw The Martian yesterday. A very good science-driven space opera about a guy struggling to survive under the worst imaginable conditions: lots of potatoes but no ketchup. A strong ensemble cast, and an intriguing and captivating plot. No aliens or star wars, just the kinds of things a space program has to deal with: the unforgiving nature of space. Damon is the Jimmy Stewart of our time. Always pretty much the same character, but a calm, reassuring force within a film. The audience avatar. The guy we trust to get us home. If I have an issue with the movie at all, it’s that it downplayed the passage of time and the psychological stresses that must cause. The people on Earth were under enormous pressure to produce solutions in an insanely short period of time, but the people in space had to deal with a ton of tedium, and it would have been nice to see that acknowledged a bit more. Tedium and disco. What a combination. Actually, the choice of disco songs was so on the nose at times it was hilarious. Hot Stuff when he’s carting around the radioactive material, the obligatory David Bowie space song, Waterloo by Abba when defeat seems at hand and Donna Summer’s triumphant anthem over the closing parts. All in a all, a well conceived and executed adventure tale. But I expect Damon’s character never wants fries with that again.

There are probably weirder TV shows in current production than The Leftovers, but I’m hard pressed to think of one. For the first 10 minutes of last night’s season 2 premiere, I kept wondering if maybe I’d stumbled into the wrong show by accident. And then another show started, and it wasn’t until very late in the game that we see some familiar faces. Talk about a way to build suspense, though. Have a “psychic” character tell someone else that something bad is going to happen, then watch the second guy stick his hand in a garbage disposal. There’s definitely some weird stuff going on in Miracle, TX. Reminds me a bit of “The End of the Whole Mess” and the waters that prolong life. I get the impression that miracles aren’t all that welcome in Miracle. And what was the deal with the pie? And the cricket? So many questions.

My biggest question about The Affair is the timeline. When does the jail stuff happen with respect to everything else. Much later than the brunt of the episode? So I gather. I’m always intrigued by the way the show recreates certain scenes from different characters’ points of view. Even the clothing is different at times, but definitely the tone and specifics of, for example, the mediation meeting. Totally different. And that had to be one of the most awkward sex scenes I’ve ever seen. Lots of buzz on the ‘net today about the full frontal shot, brief and blurry though it was, but nary a whisper about all the nudity on The Leftovers.

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