Fortunate Son

Watching mainly for 60s atmosphere and soundtrack, at least the soundtrack is partly there. On the surface of it, the subject/premise seemed fairly original at least, the subject of US draft-dodgers running and hiding in Canada.

Canada avoided involvement in Vietnam-Australia and New Zealand did not.

So Vietnam caused all of the same social ructions here as in America itself. Peace-marches, khaki elections, Agent Orange. College students throwing buckets of red paint or pig's blood on returning veterans. 501 Australian KIA. Thousands more physical and psychological cripples.

I was 8 years too young to be drafted, don't know to this day whether I'd have gone along with it or run as well if I had bene old enough and had been called up.

Oh well, it was a good war soundtrack music wise. The shows song selection bears useful comparison with another recent 60s time-capsule series like AQUARIUS for example.

Yes, the US ,military or spy-spooks blackmailing some guy that had a patrol/firefight go pear-shaped in a friendly-fire FUBAR , to then go to Canada to infiltrate spy on and help sabotage the draft-dodgers and their support network IS a far-fetched one.

One other thing that could have been done without in both a continuity sense and annoying sense, is a teenager that goes "WHATEVER".

I don't think 'WHATEVER ' was invented in 1968. Which was a good thing.

The hippy-parents with a conservative business-oriented child maybe of course is a little (Alex Keaton/Family Ties) derivative.

It's enough to keep me washing past the episode #2 or 3 I'm up to so far..I'm at least going to look up some of the sound-track songs I did not recognize, about half I did recognize. .here in Australia they out it on about 2310 after he late ch9 news so, another advantage is that the ad-breaks are very short.

{Initial Response} A dive into the cross border (🇺🇸 and 🇨🇦) drama around the Vietnam war. For a series that depends on high emotion (personal and political) it struggles to find its footing (the news footage helps). It suffers, a little bit, by having every character having a disparate crisis. There is no steady ground, no safe place for them to land, no hope for the struggle, no destination for the journey to take, which makes the turmoil chaotic rather than forge a narrative. There are also some sloppy mistakes (the border crossing incident should have been on the American side not the Canadian side, what's with the gate at the border?, and how did Hunter know where to meet Lang?) but it has a good cast who are giving good performances (🇨🇦 produced, 🇨🇦 supporting cast and crew). Based on the first episode, I'm giving this series a tentative 6 (wistful) out of 10, hoping that they will begin to ground (and clean up) the story. {Drama}

Kari Matchett is far too good of an actress to be involved in this propaganda play. It is obvious to anyone who experienced the late 60's that what is being offered up by the writers is pure biased speculation with no research being done at all, and it is a shame.

I was in the Navy as a corpsman, my brother a Marine in the swamps of Vietnam. We both knew people who objected and people who ran. I am sure at least a few are still alive and could have been used as advisors for continuity, correctness, reality... three factors lacking from the script.

I suggest the tag line, based on a true story be removed for honesty's sake.

That's one star apiece for each episode.

I was in high school during 1968 and what's portrayed here is pure nonsense. The plot is simply unbelievable on so many levels. It involves a conspiracy theory that even a hard-core conspiracy nut would say is far-fetched. For reasons I don't understand, CBC is heavily into doing "period" pieces and every one that they do is an absolute mess of anachronisms and basic stupidity. This one is true to form.

I've watched all eight episodes of the first season, and I'm so glad I stumbled upon "Fortunate Son" on CBC Gem. I was intrigued by the show's premise of the draft dodger experience in Canada during the Vietnam War. I feel like this is a story that hasn't been told before. I grew up next door to a draft dodger and his family, but I was always too polite to ask about their experiences and why activism was so important to them. Now that I'm much older, I have a greater understanding of what they must have gone through. What made me fall in love with the show was the writing. It was very clever to write a spy/thriller series with an American family as its focus and to show how activism puts a strain on their relationships with one another. I also appreciated how the characters are written smart--they sometimes make poor decisions, but I never questioned their intelligence. The actors also give topnotch performances. Stephen Moyer plays menacing so well, and Kari Matchett's Ruby is the heart and soul of the show. Darren Mann (Travis) and Kacey Rohl (Ellen) are young actors to watch, and I was impressed by the intensity they brought to their roles. The two cops played by Patrick Gallagher and Ty Olsson also inject some much-appreciated humour into the show with their witty asides ("Hippies--what did we do to deserve them?"). I also loved the attention to detail, from the episode titles based on songs of the sixties to the props (hey, I recognize those coffee cups). The ending was kind of left open (Ralph, watch out for those redheads!), so I hope CBC picks the show up for a second season. If you're on the fence about watching it, I say give it a try. The retro vibe of the sixties is fun to watch (the clothes, the music, the vintage cars), but it will be the writing and the characters that'll make you want to stay along for the ride.