It’s called Fortitude, and that may be exactly what is required to watch Sky’s new big-budget murder mystery starring Stanley Tucci, Christopher Eccleston and The Killing’s Sofie Gråbøl.
The opening episode of the the arctic circle drama, which cost around £25m to make, and will air on Sky Atlantic in January, is relentlessly unsettling and claustrophobic, a blizzard (literally) of intrigue, infidelity, corruption and murder. David Simon, creator of the The Wire, once said: “Fuck the average viewer.” Fortitude is likely to leave lacklustre subscribers behind. When Tucci’s Met police detective turns up an hour or so in (“You’re American?” “Yes.”) it’s a shaft of light in the darkness. Fortitude’s population is 713, but there aren’t many of them that you’d want to share a pint with.
The 12-part series is the latest in Sky’s drive to up its game in homegrown drama, to create shows that sit alongside HBO acquisitions like Game of Thrones. The Tunnel, its award-winning adaptation of The Bridge, was its most conspicuous hit to date and is set to return for a sequel later this year.
Fortitude has plenty of star power, with Michael Gambon, Jessica Raine, Luke Treadaway and Richard Dormer among its ensemble cast. It is written by Simon Donald, who scripted Channel 4 drama Low Winter Sun.
Twin Peaks is the most obvious comparison, with its labyrinthine plot twists and hints at the supernatural, although even David Lynch’s opener stopped short of Fortitude’s pig in a poke (any more information than that would be a spoiler). An idyllic retreat which isn’t really idyllic at all, Fortitude is the safest place on earth (just don’t go outside without some warm boots. Or a gun. Polar bears, see?), rocked by a savage killing that thaws out its frozen underbelly.
It pays to expect the unexpected. But it is Twin Peaks that keeps coming back to mind, with a plan for a grand glacier hotel which briefly recalled Ben Horne’s ambitions for the Great Northern Hotel. The Norwegians didn’t hang around after Laura Palmer was murdered.
In Fortitude, escape might not be so simple.
• This article was amended on 9 December 2014. Simon Donald was not involved in the recent AMC remake of Low Winter Sun, as originally stated.
