Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Terror’ On AMC, About 19th Century British Ships Attacked By A Mysterious Creature

If you’re a fan of sailing lore, then the story of the HMS Terror and the HMS Erebus are likely among your favorites. They disappeared in the Arctic in 1845 on a search for the Northwest Passage, and even when the remains were found, there is plenty of speculation as to what happened to those ships and their crews. AMC’s The Terror adds a horror spin onto the story; can they make it interesting to watch?

THE TERROR: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Two men in the tent of an Inuit native, trying to figure out what happened to three Royal Navy officers. The Inuit native tells them that the one officer who spoke their tongue said that both ships that sailed up there are gone, and everyone is dead, victims of a predator who had “muscles and spells.”

The Gist: We flash back to September, 1846. Two exploratory ships, the HMS Terror and the HMS Erebus, are pushing through the Arctic Ocean in search of the long-sought-after Northwest Passage. In charge of the Erebus — and the mission — is Sir John Franklin (Ciarán Hinds), who feels that he is very close to finding that passage and claim it for mother England.

His second-in-command, and captain of the Terror, is Francis Crozier (Jared Harris), a veteran of Arctic sea expeditions and the only person on Sir John’s executive staff who expresses caution at barreling forward. The #2 on the Erebus, James Fitzjames (Tobias Menzies) is convinced that Crozier is old and tired and should not be Sir John’s second in any capacity.

There’s some strange illness going through the crew. We see one crewman throw up dark blood, then he sees a vision of an old Inuit man while in the infirmary, and he dies. The ship’s junior surgeon, Dr. Henry Goodsir (Paul Ready) sees no sign of scurvy or other disease when he performs an autopsy on the sailor.

As the ice gets thicker around the ships, Erebus‘ propeller gets bent by a slab, confirmed by officer Henry Collins (Trystan Gravelle), who is also spooked by a figure he sees floating in the water below the surface. Crozier wants to abandon Erebus and have the Terror sail into safe harbor and wait out the winter, fearful that both ships will be caught in the quickly forming Arctic ice pack. “This place wants us dead,” he tells the executive officers. Sir John, however, can feel “the grail” is close, so he tells everyone to press on, with Terror in the lead and his crippled Erebus taking up the rear.

By the end of the first hour, however, the ships are caught in the pack and are stuck. During the second hour, after months of being stranded on the pack, Sir John sends teams over land to find open water. Nothing is found, but one team, led by Collins and Cornelius Hickey (Adam Nagaitis), find something else: a mysterious creature — could be a man, could be a bear — that attacks the party, and basically guts one of the men.

Our Take: The Terror is based on the real story of the disappearance of the Terror and Erebus, as well as 120 sailors and officers, in 1845. An expedition in recent years found the ships, south of where they disappeared, but there is still no explanation of why they sank. With that as the launch point, showrunners David Kajganich and Soo Hugh, as well as executive producer Ridley Scott, imagine that the crew may have been picked off one-by-one by this mysterious creature. Also, the spectre of disease, starvation, and general chaos is always hanging over the ships and its crew as they try to find their way out.

However, it’s a slow burn of a story, and the first two episodes only begin to scratch the surface as to how this will play out. Don’t get us wrong: it’s a gorgeous show all around, from the 19th-century ship interiors to the foreboding ice world that’s above decks, it’s fascinating to look at. And all the performances, especially Harris’ performance as the wary Crozier, are pitch-perfect.

This is one of those shows, though, that challenges those who have short attention spans, or just aren’t into thick British and Irish accents, or care about the rigors of being a sailor in the 1840s. If you’ve read Patrick O’Brian’s novels or the Horatio Hornblower series with interest, these first two episodes are likely going to be great naval porn for you. But for everyone else, it’s pretty much a slog until about halfway through the second episode.

But once we get an idea of what that creature can do, and we also hear from an young Inuit woman who’s nicknamed “Lady Silence” (Nive Nielsen) who has had experience with the creature, things pick up quite a bit.

Sex and Skin: Dozens of men abandoned on an Arctic ice pack. While there may be some shenanigans going on — and there’s a hint of that in the first episode — we’re strictly business for the most part.

Parting Shot: Since AMC is airing the first two episodes back to back, we’ll talk about the last scene in the second episode; Lady Silence tells Crozier, who speaks her language, that if they don’t leave soon, they’re going to disappear. And she makes a motion of pulling her fingers out of her mouth, as if to tell the officers that that’s where they’re going to.

Sleeper Star: We like Ready as the young doctor. But, like the story, there are other side characters that are yet to be discovered.

Most Pilot-y Line: Really, it’s not any one line, but on a show like this you either need a high amount of concentration, closed-captioning, or both to figure out who’s who or what’s being said. And as slow-moving as the first couple of episodes are, that becomes difficult.

Our Call: Stream It. If you have the patience to get through Episode 2, a thrilling and harrowing ride should be in front of you.

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, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch The Terror on AMC