The Terror on AMC

Gotta ask, is anyone watching this? I swore up and down I was gonna forsake hour-long dramas eternally (except for Westworld), but this sucked me back in. Thankfully, its a miniseries, so I'm a little less likely to burn out on it.

Enjoying the heck out of it, just like I did the novel. There are a few changes, but everything is pretty close. I've heard reviewers describe the show (and not negatively) as 'misery porn'. Well, yeah, but the nice part is that it actually gives you characters to care about. The two captain are both interesting, despite being at odds with each other the show shies away from making one perfect and the other awful. The, let's say, supernatural elements are restrained, and much better for that. Just like in the book, I remember the [redacted for spoilers, but c'mon, you know what it's gonna be] being the least of their problems on the expedition.

My one big issue, which you can't really do much about, is that everyone is a white dude in a sailor's outfit. It makes them hard to keep track of, but again, you can't do much to change that. Glad I read the book beforehand, knowing the spoilers doesn't make it less effective, and it helps in the moments when important plot points get lost in the mumbly British dialogue.

Ha, like with GoT, reading the book really helped me with keeping people straight. Unfortunately, my GF read The Terror as well, so I can't lord it over her and mansplain every single character and their backstory whenever I feel like it.

Both Harris and Hinds are excellent, like I said, the relationship between the captains has been my favorite thing so far. There are seven whole episodes left, and I'm already sad it will be ending eventually. Looking forward to rewatching it during the summer heat wave.

Episode 4 was titled 'Punished, as a Boy', we struggled to figure out what that referred to at first. Then we found out. *shudders*

Hickey is a pretty unpleasant character, while Crozier remains mostly sympathetic IMHO. Still, that was harsh.

MaeZe said:

I saw episode 4, turns out AMC was on my cable line-up. Fortunately having read the book, I knew what was going on with the two ships and the monster. It was interesting enough I'll try to watch more episodes.

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It's pretty close to the book, I remember feeling when I read it that there weren't really that many surprises. You can wiki the expedition, and the monster, well, it's not really a twist IMHO.

Ep 4 was a little boring compared to the other three, I thought. I mean, I'm all in and loved it, but it's just a bit of a 'middle' episode. Did you feel that Sophia was a little more developed on the show? I kind of did. Also, though she gets a lot of lip service for how cool she is in the book, Lady Jane definitely comes off a boss and I'm grateful for the time they spend on her.

D.A Watson said:

Being Scottish, I can understand them well enough when they're speaking English, but I've been watching it on a *cough cough* borrowed stream, and maddeningly, there are no subtitles when they're conversing in Inuit. Watched the last episode last night and have no idea what they were talking about in the lengthy and seemingly important bit of Eskimo dialogue at the end!

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LOL, no judgments because I've watched most of GoT on that amazing borrowed stream you mentioned. Still, you gotta respect them a little bit for making the experience harder to enjoy that way. We're watching it on Amazon Prime, which fortunately has subtitles for the Inuit but nothing else. I'm obsessive about subtitles, but having to let it go, I find I'm more immersed without them.

Maryn said:

My kids have ruined this show and a lot of movies by posing a perfectly reasonable question that cannot be adequately answered: Before the ships and crews were there, what was the monster (or dinosaur, or predatory alien, etc.) eating? In this case, were there sufficient Inuit? Because the ones we encounter other than the woman don't seem afraid to be alone out in the open and make no steps to add any level of protection.

Note that I haven't read the book. Our daughter, who has, tells me I don't know what I think I know but will not say more.

Maryn, mystified

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IIRC, it's more like a god or spirit than a flesh-and-blood monster, so eating is purely for pleasure (and to help those poor sailors who are having such a hard time, and need someone to politely end it for them).

Hmm, I had heard short-faced bear. But TVtropes as a source of information is...questionable. I actually have to admit I'm not wild about the look of the bear, but that's not really a complaint that strikes any points off for me.

Maryn said:

It could be a short-faced bear. I've never heard of them, so hey, what do I know? It hardly matters, but after teasing the viewer for so long about its appearance, I somehow expected more or better. And after the polar bear in Lost, I have to express my disappointment that it's not real. And wonder how a spirit eats flesh and bone--you know, the usual questions, like does a spirit shit in the woods? Oh, wait, there's no woods. (And did you ever see a place more desolate than that huge field of rocks?)

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I'm not quite sure where the book came down on how flesh-and-blood Tuunbaq is, suffice it to say I think it has a physical body despite being a spirit/god/something. As for what spirits poop, I'm gonna have to spend the rest of Sunday thinking about that. What's interesting is that it seems to eat souls on the show, something they've hinted at and developed a little bit more in episode nine. I dunno what that's about.

I am never gonna figure out who's who. I can't tell you how many times I've asked 'Is that Goodsir?'

Thought so, for a long time Goodsir was the doctor who incinerated himself, then I thought he was FitzJames for a while. All the names are so ridiculous, I would think they were satirical if they weren't their real names. I mean, come on. Goodsir? Gore? Captain Crozier?

Hickey is my favorite kind of villain, the one who's Pure Evil right from the start, but manages to come off as a secondary protangonist, and you chart his ups and down while managing to sympathize with him a bit. Reminds me of Steerpike from Gormenghast that way a bit.