(Review based on seeing the whole season one.)
The series treats a number of environmental themes, such as deforestation. This is a thing to be proud of. Still, I couldn't help thinking that the series was missing a golden opportunity : give the screenplay and storylines a very slight twist and you could have a thriller or drama series about the environment that's not only tense, but informative and topical too. Imagine the following plot : somewhere within the seemingly pristine beauty of these superb woods, criminals are building an illegal dump for dangerous waste. Two girls happen to witness one of the waste transports. One of the girls gets murdered, the other one suffers serious head injuries causing partial memory loss. Fifteen years later, the survivor - by now a doctor of some note - returns to her home town and discovers that many of its inhabitants are ill with mysterious diseases. Moreover, the surrounding woods are disfigured by strange growths or barren spots. The survivor discovers the cause : noxious substances, coming from the dump, have been leaking into the soil and the water.
And voilà : you've got a thrilling series that makes sense, too. It's not even difficult to write such a screenplay : go to the website of one of the major environmental protection conventions (say "Basel" on waste or "Stockholm" on persistent organic pollutants) and you'll find a choice of real-life horror stories, complete with case histories and timelines.
But no, for some reason or other "Kettering" provides us with hours of katzenjammer about strange signals, UFO's, government conspiracies, triffids, the Dyatlov Pass incident and so on. (Mind you, it's very stylish katzenjammer.) It's possible that the series, in later seasons, will be able to distill something coherent out of this wild and extravagant mix, but I doubt it. Mark the words of your old auntie Myriam : I fear that this will become a "Lost" II, meaning that the viewer will get lots and lots of riddles, questions, in-jokes, dream sequences, mysteries, alternative futures and so on, but no overarching narrative and no resolution.
I'm still giving "Kettering" seven stars, for its eerie, brooding atmosphere and its superb (and superbly filmed) locations, exteriors and nature scenes.
With regard to the Dyatlov Pass incident : no, I don't know what happened to those poor people, but I do know that they died young and under horrid circumstances. So why use their death as a source of cheap thrills ? It's bad enough having to die this way (while knowing your friends are dying too) without getting buried, posthumously, under several feet of UFO nonsense.
The series treats a number of environmental themes, such as deforestation. This is a thing to be proud of. Still, I couldn't help thinking that the series was missing a golden opportunity : give the screenplay and storylines a very slight twist and you could have a thriller or drama series about the environment that's not only tense, but informative and topical too. Imagine the following plot : somewhere within the seemingly pristine beauty of these superb woods, criminals are building an illegal dump for dangerous waste. Two girls happen to witness one of the waste transports. One of the girls gets murdered, the other one suffers serious head injuries causing partial memory loss. Fifteen years later, the survivor - by now a doctor of some note - returns to her home town and discovers that many of its inhabitants are ill with mysterious diseases. Moreover, the surrounding woods are disfigured by strange growths or barren spots. The survivor discovers the cause : noxious substances, coming from the dump, have been leaking into the soil and the water.
And voilà : you've got a thrilling series that makes sense, too. It's not even difficult to write such a screenplay : go to the website of one of the major environmental protection conventions (say "Basel" on waste or "Stockholm" on persistent organic pollutants) and you'll find a choice of real-life horror stories, complete with case histories and timelines.
But no, for some reason or other "Kettering" provides us with hours of katzenjammer about strange signals, UFO's, government conspiracies, triffids, the Dyatlov Pass incident and so on. (Mind you, it's very stylish katzenjammer.) It's possible that the series, in later seasons, will be able to distill something coherent out of this wild and extravagant mix, but I doubt it. Mark the words of your old auntie Myriam : I fear that this will become a "Lost" II, meaning that the viewer will get lots and lots of riddles, questions, in-jokes, dream sequences, mysteries, alternative futures and so on, but no overarching narrative and no resolution.
I'm still giving "Kettering" seven stars, for its eerie, brooding atmosphere and its superb (and superbly filmed) locations, exteriors and nature scenes.
With regard to the Dyatlov Pass incident : no, I don't know what happened to those poor people, but I do know that they died young and under horrid circumstances. So why use their death as a source of cheap thrills ? It's bad enough having to die this way (while knowing your friends are dying too) without getting buried, posthumously, under several feet of UFO nonsense.