Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 07:39:27 AM

Login with username, password and session length

The Terror - BBC 2's "new" horror show

Started by dead-ced-dead, March 13, 2021, 09:48:15 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

dead-ced-dead

Has anyone been watching The Terror on BBC 2 or the Iplayer? It came out on AMC in the USA in 2018 but has only just come out here in the UK.

It's pretty wonderful. It's both critical of Victorian vainglory and Empire building and also very sympathetic to the men on the doomed titular ship as it sails through the arctic landscape of Northern Canada as it searches for the Northwest Passage.

It's spooky, bleak and has some wonderful performances. I binged all 10 episodes in 2 days.

BlodwynPig

I think we had a thread on this a few years ago - I believe there is at least one follow-up (different story). I loved it.


Attila

We've been parcelling it out on iPlayer. I read the book years back, and really liked it.

I've been a fan (if that's the right word!) of the Franklin Expedition since I was a young teenager in the 1980s, and there was a big to-do in the news about finding some of the bodies, such as John Torrington, and studying them for lead poisoning. Reading around about the Terror and Erebus was an on/off hobby for a long time, and I was thrilled when both ships were rediscovered, since both times the announcement came on my birthday, albeit a year apart.

We're up to part 6 -- Mr Attila doesn't know the storyline at all, but I do, and think they've done a good job in terms of slowly unspooling the story, the atmosphere, etc (I like isolation horror stories, anyway). Did have some laffs initially imagining that you had yer men Julius Caesar and Brutus as officers and commanders there, but that's because I'm childish and a Roman history lecturer, &c.

I didn't know about the show until a couple of weeks ago; reading up on it was equally surprised to see that there's a sequel. Anyway, if nothing else, it's l ed me back to reading stuff about the expedition again.

Alberon

The sequel is not a sequel, they tried to change the show into an anthology one doing something completely different. I've not bothered to watch that though I liked this and the original book.

El Unicornio, mang

Really liked it, haven't bothered with season 2 which as mentioned is something different and didn't get particularly good reviews iirc.

Fr.Bigley

I loved the bit where
Spoiler alert
Captain James gets bummed by the beast and thrown in the ice hole whilst he was getting burned at the same time...Take that he who wont listen to Richard Harris' Lad!
[close]

Norton Canes

Watched ep.1 the other night. Don't know if this is something about the sound recording on modern telly but sometimes it was hard to make out what some of the characters were saying, not because their voices were all muffled or whispery, but almost because they were too clear. Like when the levels get maxed up on pop records these days (I say 'these days' - for the past 15 years or so)

Inspector Norse

As others have said, the original series is excellent - it's a horror, but one on many different layers
Spoiler alert
(the slightly naff monster grows increasingly irrelevant as the plot progresses)
[close]
, concentrating on the way people are affected by isolation, hierarchy, social expectation and boredom, with excellent production and performances.

I watched the first 2-3 episodes of the second series, which was completely unrelated and concentrated on Japanese Americans during the Second World War. It wasn't very good. The theme might have been interesting but the characters and dialogue were clunky and it went totally overboard on the exposition: it managed to show, tell and repeat for the benefit of those who don't want any ambiguity at all.

Bazooka

I watched it all on my flight back home for Christmas from China 2018, probably the best flight entertainment I've ever experienced. I also haven't watched the second series, but the first was excellent, I loved the ending and just a really solid cast.

Bently Sheds

I didn't really grasp what the final shot was meant to represent.

Fr.Bigley

Waiting for a seal to breach it's head through the ice. Feed his family, innit.

dead-ced-dead

Quote from: Bently Sheds on March 13, 2021, 01:20:45 PM
I didn't really grasp what the final shot was meant to represent.

I think it's meant to show that
Spoiler alert
Crozier is now fully integrated into the Inuit camp. Having found some calm and a sense of place.
[close]

Chollis

Really glad this is finally making it to a wider audience, one of the best series I'd watched in years when it came out.

Dex Sawash


ersatz99

Thanks for the recommendation, really enjoying the atmosphere of this. Either there's something up with the sound of my TV  or maybe it's just the tight dialogue at times but I've stuck on subtitles to keep up only to find they're out of sync (ahead) of the sound.

Bently Sheds

Thanks for the explanations about that end shot. I thought he had popped his clogs on the ice and was frozen solid.

Bazooka

Quote from: Bently Sheds on March 14, 2021, 02:19:04 PM
Thanks for the explanations about that end shot. I thought he had popped his clogs on the ice and was frozen solid.

He is waiting for seals.

An tSaoi


Cottonon

I found the image of
Spoiler alert
John Torringtons single leg dressed up for burial in the coffin
[close]
very Jam like in its absurdity. The
Spoiler alert
death of Goodsir
[close]
was magnificent though, somehow managing to meld Carravagio and Kubrick.

Attila

Still slowly wending our way through this -- if it were me alone, I'd've torn through it by now, really enjoying it. Had a giggle at seeing whatsisfuss dressed up like a Roman soldier at the ice carnival thing.

Ta for the explanation about the 'sequel' -- I was baffled initially when reading the episode summaries. I don't see myself chasing that one up.

It's all prompted me to revisit reading about the two ships and the expedition again; I've even gone and bought Michael Palin's book.

ersatz99

Just as I was starting to accept the horror of cannibalism we get to see
Spoiler alert
the madness that Crozier discovered with Edward's necklaced face
[close]

Cuellar

Finished this the other night - enjoyed it a great deal. Although we've been cat-sitting in a neighbour's house and she's got a massive HD telly, and the shots of the lads on the ice look very artificial in super high definition. Everything looks like a set. Watching on our slightly shitter telly at home it wasn't so distracting.

Quote from: ersatz99 on March 15, 2021, 04:02:42 PM
Just as I was starting to accept the horror of cannibalism we get to see
Spoiler alert
the madness that Crozier discovered with Edward's necklaced face
[close]

Yeah that was striking. I liked how in general it left a lot unexplained
Spoiler alert
- did someone do that to Edward, had they all just gone completely crackers from the lead?
[close]

Bazooka

I agree the ambiguity made it more compelling. As I said I watched it on a plane, so didn't notice the effects too much.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

We just watched the first episode. I thought the effects looked seamless. The thing that really distracted me was that the doctor is also the meek bloke on Motherland and plays both roles the same way.

Bently Sheds

But he also took that bloke's eye out with a spoon in Utopia.

jobotic


Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Finished it over the weekend. I do have some misgivings about the monster and fictionalising real events so heavily. It reminds me a bit of the Danny Boyle film Sunshine, in that the environment is hostile enough to make the secondary menace unnecessary. I loved it overall though. Really gripping stuff.

The entire cast were excellent, but there were some obvious standouts: Jared Harris morphing into his own dad as Crozier. Despite my Motherland pisstaking, Paul Ready was a good Goodsir - gentle, but not a pushover. Adam Nagaitis was excellently creepy with his constant smirk - too obviously slimy to get away with much under normal circumstances, but perfectly placed to take advantage of a crisis.

paruses

#28
Really enjoyed this but am at best indifferent about the monster. Excellent portrayals all round. Also got really into the aesthetics of late Georgian/early Victorian naval gear too. Hats in particular.

Reminded me of watching a BBC thing a few years ago where some scientist men tried to drag a boat along the route the crew would have taken and it nearly killed them instantly. Amazing how far the last of the crew actually got.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: paruses on March 29, 2021, 07:01:15 PM
Also got really into the aesthetics of late Georgian/early Victorian naval gear too. Hats in particular.
That's a thing actually: Their clothes were blatantly inadequate for the cold (which was true of the real expedition, apparently) but it rarely seemed to be an issue. They were even going around without coats and jumpers in the last couple of episodes, like a bunch of geordies.