3 Forgotten Binge Worthy Shows For Lockdown

Seasons 1-3 on Sky Boxsets UK

Seasons 1-2 on Amazon Prime USA

Created by Simon Donald & Matthew Bird

Genre - Crime / Noir / Horror

Starring Richard Dormer, Stanley Tucci, Sofie Grabol, Bjorn Hlyur Haraldsson, Mia Jexen, Alexandra Moen, Sienna Guillory, Luke Treadaway, Christopher Eccleston, Michael Gambon, Dennis Quaid, Michelle Fairley, Ken Stott & Parminder Nagra.

Fortitude was a cult hit in the making even during its initial run as one of the Sky's most expensive original productions back in 2015. It had a massive superstar cast, amazing production values filmed largely in Iceland for true authenticity. As much as I personally loved the show it never received the acclaim it deserved and that is due to the shifts in the tone of the show.

From the trailer you would expect an English language Scandi-noir, but instead of a 'who done it' show it morphed into something that took libeally from The X Files, The Thing & Twin Peaks. Despite the big names in the cast the show belongs to Sheriff Dan Anderssen (Richard Dormer) who steals every scene throghout all 3 seasons and by the end of the first season, its clear it is his story that is the most interesting part of the show.

Without getting into spoiler territory Season 1 kicks off with a murder that the small town of Fortitude's woefully inept police force simply cannot handle, this leads to DCI Eugene Morton (Stanley Tucci) flying in from London to take charge of the case and clash with Dan Anderssen.

What makes the show work is the off kilter tone that as a viewer keeps you on edge, oftentimes you are not sure if you should be horrifed or laugh at a scene. A special mention needs to go to Mix Jexen & Alexandra Moen as local constables Ingrid & Petra who provide most of the comic relief throughout the seasons, their perfectly timed one liners and reaction shots to some of the crazy elements of the plot still make me laugh on rewatches.

Where season 1 tried to balance the more Scandi-noir elements with horror and weirdness season 2 went all in on the crazy most likely alienating some more of the traditional thriller viewers with some eye wincing violence again in this season. However all good things come to an end and after the less well received season 2 it looked like the end for the show so it came as somewhat of a surprise that Sky commissioned a third and final season.

The only issue with this was the amount of episodes, S1 had 12, S2 had 10 and we were only given a paltry 4 to wrap up all the previous seasons storylines. Unfortunately for me this simply wasn't enough, part of the shows appeal was the amazing locations and cinematography and the extraneousness scenes where you got a real feel for the town. Season 3 moved production to Norway from Iceland and because of the lack of episodes everything else was sacrificed to cram in as much plot as possible.

Ideally we should have had a one off Fortitude movie that had a narrow focus on one particular plot point (like Dan Anderssen) or a full run of episodes. That said, Fortitude is an massively entertaining show that is hilarious and gory by equal measure and the last 4 episodes at least give the show a closure.

Next up a one season wonder -

Avaiable to buy on Amazon Prime Video, Google Play Store & Youtube

One Season 22 Episodes

Created by Shaun Cassidy

Genre - Horror

Starring Gary Cole, Lucas Black, Paige Turco, Brenda Bakke, Sarah Paulson, Jake Weber & Nick Searcy

'Someones at the door' a line that terrified a younger me over 25 years ago, exec produced by Sam Raimi who helped bring Shaun Cassidys tale of a demonic small town southern sheriff Lucas Buck (Gary Cole) to the screen. Yet another show that opens with a few horrific murders (honestly I swear there are no murders in the first episode of my next recommnedation!) and for 1995 this show really pushed the boundaries of what you could show onscreen.

Yes, the above trailer looks fairly hokey 25 years later, but at the time this was one of the best shows on TV. Gary Cole gave his best performance to date as the heavily implied demonic sheriff of the ficitional town of Trinity, South Carolina and was also the debut for actor Lucas Black playing the young orphaned Caleb Temple. Young Caleb has a horrific backstory and the show is the tale of Lucas trying to bring Caleb over to the darkside.

The show had some great guest stars such as Raimi staple Bruce Campbell turning up as a state police officer Lt. Jack Drey to be an adversary to Lucas and that sums up the main issue of the show. Lucas is undoubtedly the villain of the show, what he does in the first episode cannot be forgiven but as the episodes go by and other characters try and help Caleb or stand up to Black, they all fall by the wayside.

The problem is that Coles performance is so thunderous that the rest of the cast are left in his dust, a young Sarah Paulson is given little to do and Dr Crower's (Jake Weber) attempts to investigate Lucas fail at every turn. Calebs out of town cousin Gail Emory (Paige Turco) is again no match for Lucas, perhaps the best ancillary character was the seductive southern schoolteacher Selena Coombs (Brenda Bakke) who had more character devlopment than most in the show. She wasn't just a victim, or girlfriend character and you always got the sense she was five steps ahead of all the other characters even Lucas sometimes.

Apparently one of the issues for the shows struggles was that the network showed some of the episodes out of order breaking the narrative and makers viewers turn off because they could not follow the story. At least with the old fashioned 22 episode seasons the makers of the show got enough notice to wrap up the main storyline of the show so that the season concluded. Looking back now if it was not for shows like American Gothic you never would have had shows like True Blood or American Horror Story make it to the small screen. At the time the show was groundbreaking in terms of content and having a reprehensible murderer as your main character, in the years since we've had Dexter, Breaking Bad & The Sopranos that expanded on that idea. I'm not even a reboot would work now as the show was of its time and many of the themes and characters that made this unique 25 years ago have been well worn by many shows since.

And finally a show with no pilot episode murder

Halt & Catch Fire

Created by Christopher Cantwell & Christopher C Rogers

Starring Lee Pace, Scoot McNairy, Mackenzie Davis & Kerry Bishe

Seasons 1-4 currently on Amazon Prime. The show concluded in 2017

The story goes that AMC were looking for the next Mad Men and decided that this story of the devlopment of the home computing industy in the 1980's would be it, and I will freely admit that a tech heavy drama about old computers did not sound like it would hold my attention yet I am only a few episodes from finishing the show now.

Season 1 starts with entrepenur Joe McMillan (Lee Pace) convincing low level computer engineer Gordon Clark (Scoot McNairy) to help him develop a new computer that will revolutionise the market. He also enlists the help of brilliant young programmer Cameron Howe (McKenzie Davis) and we also follow the plotline of Clark's disaffected wife Donna (Kerry Bishe). As later seasons progressed the roles of Cameron & Donna were massively improved from their earlier season wife/girlfriend roles and this greatly improved the narrative of the show with the female characters having their own storylines independent of Joe & Gordon. Season 2 & 3 would focus on Donna & Cameron launching their own company and season 4 would jump forward to dealing with the advent of the home internet.

Most of the actors were fairly unknown when the show began and although decent initial reviews the audience never really peaked past more than a million viewers, despite critics agreeing the quality of the show improved over the seasons the audience never did which is why the show end after season 4.

Well thats my 3 recommednations, Fortitude (Scandi-Noir / Horror) American Gothic (Southern Horror) & Halt & Catch Fire (Drama). Now get watching, what else do you have to do today?