It isn't news that Netflix has become impressively adept at producing content outside of the English language, but it's still mighty striking every time one of these series or movies arrives looking particularly high-budget. If there's one genre that almost requires an ample CGI budget, it's that of natural disasters.
That's the genre taken on by La Palma, an upcoming original four-part miniseries that just got its first full trailer, as you'll see below. It's a Norwegian series, which has to be somewhat niche, although the titanic success of shows like Squid Game has shown that people are happy to watch with subtitles if the story's good enough.
La Palma looks like it'll take on a fairly familiar structure, albeit with its own flair. A family heads to the titular island, one of the Canary Islands, for a warm weather Christmas break. Little do they know, though, that the island is about to undergo a catastrophic change, one that is going to have a massive effect on all of them.
The eruption of a volcano on its slopes threatens to trigger a massive landslide that could have devastating consequences worldwide, as well as on more locally on that family. In fact, we get some glimpses of terrifying events including a plane crash and the aftermath of the eruption.
What's super impressive is how good it all looks, though. We're obviously more accustomed to TV shows looking amazing, nowadays, but it's still always interesting to see a show go out to bat against environmental disaster movies of yore like 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow.
La Palma looks like it could be its own new reference point for a TV approach to the matter – or a streaming one, anyway. It's yet another marker of how Netflix knows that being the best streaming service is a matter of variety and quality, not just one or the other.
The four-part series does have a release date, too. It'll hit Netflix on 12 December, and if you're a fan of disaster movies, it looks like it'll be one to add to your watchlist.
