Episodes of forty minutes, cliffhangers, twists and turns. What more could one want to while away lockdown evenings?
Fermont is a grim place to live, behind a wall and with many of its facilities seemingly underground and needing to be ventilated by huge fans. This is what we see virtually at the beginning of the initial episode; something has gone wrong and the ventilation is wafting a terrible odour into the shops and corridors.
Upon the discovery of the cause of this, an experienced CID detective is drafted into take charge of the investigation from the local cops. Her sense of personal relationships is a disaster zone but she manages well enough with the young cop who's assigned to her as principal helper.
Various characters have murky motivations and pasts; some have perverted desires that become clear as the series progresses. The investigation is set against commercial and political malarky involving the local mine owner and his wife the local mayoress as well as the separate ambitions of their son involving some very shady activities.
It stands to reason that there are several false trails and red herrings but if one can't work out "whodunnit" by the end of episode four, then it's all going in one ear and out of the other.
It's easy watching and a reasonably well-directed production. Some of the personal relationships from before the start of the events in the series are to be swallowed only with a fistful of salt but in general one can let their unrealness pass.
I enjoyed the dichotomy between the claustrophobic, confining atmosphere of the small mall housing the cop shop, boutiques, bars and services against the vastness of the countryside and its hinterland, some of which can only be reached by "Ski-Doo", an iconic Canadian type of snowmobile.
I didn't binge watch one after the other, but saw it all within a couple of days and enjoyed it. It's eminently forgettable and the opposite of profound but there's nothing wrong with that. It's a series that did its job.
