Fortitude

An international cast, including Dennis Quaid and The Killing’s Sofie Grabol, face a chilling Arctic threat in the second series of this ambitious, big-budget thriller…

- Andre Paine

When the creepy Arctic thriller Fortitude launched in 2015, it was reportedly one of the most expensive British dramas ever, costing a reputed £25 million. Featuring Christopher Eccleston, Sofie Grabol, Stanley Tucci and Michael Gambon amid epic frozen landscapes, it seemed like money well spent. The only problem was that, when it came to filming in the Icelandic town of Reydarfjordur, which doubles as Norway, the production had to buy in fake snow. But not for Series 2…

“The weather was much more helpful,” creator, writer and executive producer Simon Donald says. “But they got stormed off on a couple of occasions. For the opening sequence, the encampment got blown away in the middle of the night and they had to rebuild it. It was fiercely cold when they were shooting that – we got a lot of snow this year.”

The second run begins 60 miles north of Fortitude, which is the fictional version of the real-life Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. A sinister prologue, set in 1942, sees Russian soldiers charging into a camp of Sami travellers and their reindeer, on the track of a bloodthirsty murderer. But even after he’s gunned down in the snow, the fiendish flesh-eater proves impossible to kill.