Disaster shows tend to have similar structures; you’re introduced to the main players, and you get a little bit of backstory so you can connect with the characters. Then the disaster hits, and we see if and how these people survive it. A new Norwegian limited series has those elements, but dispenses with others that sometimes make the genre tough to watch.
Opening Shot: As we see fish swimming around, a glass-bottomed tourist boat is seen going through the water. “Bonita Beach, La Palma.”
The Gist: One of the women on the boat dives into the water, but is immediately rendered unconscious. Suddenly, gas quickly rises from the water, and it heats up so much, the glass bottom shatters.
At a resort on the island of La Palma, located in the Canary Islands, a Norwegian family arrives for their seventh Christmas at that hotel. Fredrik (Anders Baasmo) likes the familiarity of it all, but his wife Jennifer (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal) wants to explore more than they have in the past. She’s been working out lately and looks so good that the new concierge hits on her as Fredrik asks for a rental car.
His stepdaughter, seventeen-year-old Sara (Alma Günther), is concerned about the distance growing between her mother and stepdad, and seems to be attracted to a fellow tourist named Charlie (Jenny Evensen). Her little brother Tobias (Bernard Storm Lager), who is on the spectrum, wanders off from the pool and stands on a rock ledge as he notices sea turtles gathering in an unusual way.
At the La Palma Geological Institute, Álvaro (Jorge de Juan), the institute’s director, sees news of the tour boat accident and grows concerned, but keeps those concerns to himself. Since the last time the volcano on La Palma erupted, in 1949, a huge fault line has formed around the base; there is concerned that the next eruption will send piece of the mountain that’s as big as Manhattan tumbling into the ocean, touching off an unprecedentedly massive tsunami.
A young geologist, Marie Ekdal (Thea Sofie Loch Næss) sees that the instruments she put in a cave inside the mountain has stopped sending data, and she recruits Haukur (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), a veteran geologist, to go to the cave to examine it. When they get there, they notice water running down the walls ; that wasn’t happening when she set the instruments there. There’s also a massive crack in the cave roof that wasn’t there before.
There’s a lot of evidence that the crack may be one of the first signs of an eruption, but Álvaro doesn’t want to set off panic. Evidence from the water shows that the crack may have gone through to the volcano’s surface; Marie and Haukur go back to the mountain to find out more.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? La Palma is pretty much a disaster story, and it’s in the same vein as other disaster-oriented series, like High Water or Chernobyl.
Our Take: We give the writers of La Palma credit for giving us only a few characters to keep track of as the volcano erupts, people run for their lives, and the threat of the tsunami looms. We have the Norwegian family, whose visit to the resort is a tradition, but not always a happy one. And we have folks like Marie and others at the institute, whose warnings fall on indifferent ears, and then use their expertise to save people when disaster strikes.
The show’s first episode sets up both of these stories, but does so in the context of the fact that a catastrophic eruption is an “not if, but when” scenario. The island has been living on borrowed time for 75 years, and climate change has only increased the chances of that eruption happening.
Sure, the personal stuff we get from the Norwegian family, as well as the fact that Marie’s brother is living with her while trying to stay sober, helps personalize most of the main characters while they navigate their way through this disaster, the show’s writers don’t dwell too much on that aspect. The family will either be drawn together by the disaster or completely splinter apart; Marie will face her own extinction while considering what kind of global implications an eruption may have.
It’s stuff we’ve seen in disaster films and series many times, but at least here, it’s not layered with melodrama, and just that makes the show more enjoyable than others in this genre.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Henrik feels rumbling on the balcony of his hotel room, then we see steam and gas rise from the ground around the volcano.
Sleeper Star: Ólafur Darri Ólafsson is his usual gruff but loveable self as Haukur.
Most Pilot-y Line: Charlie thinks she’s on the spectrum because she always likes to be on the left, or take the lefthand elevator even if the righthand one is free. That’s not quite how that works, Charlie.
Our Call: STREAM IT. La Palma is fairly typical disaster fare, but a relatively small main cast and a lack of melodrama make the show worth a watch, especially because the season is only 4 episodes and just over 3 hours of runtime.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.