Push “Fortitude” to the top of your winter watch list, a Nordic noir in the manner of “Wallander” or “The Killing,” a dramatic thriller with a tangle of quirky characters in a frigid landscape like “Fargo,” laced with humor but not as self-consciously kooky as “Twin Peaks.”
shares a certain tonality with those previous series but is distinctly original.
A gem from Britain’s Sky Atlantic, the 12-episode first season written by Simon Donald (who created the original British “Low Winter Sun,” not the AMC remake) premieres on the Pivot network this week.
Check out the two-hour premiere of “Fortitude,” 8-10 p.m. tonight (a rerun of last night) on Pivot — which really isn’t as remote and difficult to locate as the Arctic archipelago featured in the series. Locally, Pivot resides on Channel 231 on Comcast Xfinity, Channel 197 on Dish, Channel 267 on DirecTV.
is unflappable as Detective Chief Inspector Eugene Morton, an American detective, formerly with the FBI, sent by the British government to investigate a murder in a remote Arctic town called Fortitude.
Tucci may be a focal point for American viewers, but the intriguing characters and haunting visuals of “Fortitude” are mesmerizing for quite a long stretch before Tucci even shows up.
His shivering Inspector Morton arrives to investigate the first murder to break the tranquil surface of this insular community. And he’s not particularly welcome.
The detective is especially rebuffed by local Sheriff Dan Anderssen (played by ), who has his own approach to crime-solving. Not to mention his trouble with alcohol or the fact that he apparently was present at the time and place of the murder.
As local Gov. Hildur Odegard ( of “The Killing”) presents plans for a hotel to be carved into the glacier with the northern lights as a tourist attraction, some kids find what may be a mammoth’s tooth in the thawing permafrost. The local environmental researcher knows such a discovery would conflict with the town’s plan to capitalize on the ice for tourism.
plays a wildlife photographer; (“Call the Midwife”) is the mother of a young boy.
Judging by the first three hours, polar bears are a running theme, at once beautiful and dangerous, sometimes depicted in sculpture, sometimes in attack mode.
As assorted characters pursue illicit relationships, as well as scientific studies at the Arctic Research Centre, the town reveals its busy underbelly. Like the aurora borealis, which looks pretty but is caused by traumatic explosions, Fortitude looks more serene than it is.
This Arctic outpost is as forbidding as “Fargo’s” bleak Midwest, and even more isolated, foreign and dreary. A bizarre vibe accompanies the setting, a place where “wind chimes and infidelities” are the norm.
“It isn’t an affair,” explains a resident. “This is Fortitude. It gets cold. We get close.”
Explosions of magnetic energy are just over the horizon.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830, jostrow@denverpost.com or twitter.com/ostrowdp
