‘The Terror’: The Best Show You Missed in 2018 Is Now on Hulu

There’s too much TV–and specifically, there’s too much good TV. It’s incredibly easy to overlook shows you wanted to watch, or to trail off midway through a season when the buzzy new thing drops. That’s what happened with The Terror, AMC’s prestige period piece that deftly mixed existential horror with actual horror to create a viewing experience unlike anything else on cable or on streaming. But chances are you missed it when it originally aired between March and May 2018!

Just look at all the other seasons that were dropped during The Terror’s run last year: The Handmaid’s Tale, Westworld, Lost in Space, Santa Clarita Diet, Silicon Valley, Dear White People, The Rain, Barry, Evil Genius, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the whole Roseanne debacle. Was there ever a chance of an engrossingly slow-paced drama standing out amidst such competition? The Terror was easily one of the best shows of 2018, but viewers missed it and somehow all the awards shows did too.

That changes today! All of Season 1 of The Terror is now streaming on Hulu and it is ready to creep you the F out! To help you figure out if The Terror really is for you, here’s some more info (although if you spent last spring bingeing The Handmaid’s Tale or Westworld and not The Terror, just go on and hit “play” on Episode 1).

What is The Terror about?

Based on the 2007 novel by Dan Simmons, The Terror used a real mystery/tragedy as a jumping off point to tell a terrifying tale. The series starts by telling the story of a pair of the Royal Navy’s explorer vessels, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror. Their mission: chart the Arctic in search of a northwest passage. Captain Sir John Franklin (Ciaran Hinds) led the expedition, departing England with two ships full of men in 1845. Franklin commanded Erebus while Captain Francis Crozier (Jared Harris) captained Terror. And then both ships simply vanished. They never reached their destination and a number of searches took place in the 1850s. All that was found was a note, a few artifacts, and stories from locals that had encountered the crew. In fact, the wreckages of Erebus and Terror weren’t found until 2014 and 2016!

The AMC series, using all that was known about the men on board and all of the historical artifacts, fills in the gaps and turns the story into a haunting supernatural thriller, as the crew deal with not only the inhospitable cold and dwindling rations but an angry, elusive monster.

Who is in the Terror cast?

It’s a real who’s who of English actors on this show. Harris and Hinds play the respective captains of Terror and Erebus. Harris currently stars on HBO’s Chernobyl and is most remembered for playing Lane Pryce on Mad Men. Hinds played Mance Rayder on Game of Thrones, Julius Caesar on Rome, and the voice of Grand Pabbie in Frozen. Tobias Menzies (The Crown) plays Commander James Fitzjames, Paul Ready (Bodyguard) plays Dr. Harry Goodsir, Adam Nagaitis (Chernobyl) plays Cornelius Hickey, Ian Hart (Professor Quirrell in the Harry Potter franchise) is Thomas Blanky, and singer/songwriter Nive Nielsen made her major acting debut as Lady Silence, the Inuit guide.

The rest of the cast includes Trystan Gravelle (Mr. Selfridge), Alistair Petrie (Sex Education), Richard Sutton (Dunkirk), Liam Garrigan (Once Upon a Time), Charles Edwards (Downton Abbey), James Laurenson (The Crown), Matthew McNulty (Misfits), Clive Russell (Game of Thrones), John Lynch (The Fall), and Kevin Guthrie (Abernathy in the Fantastic Beasts series).

When does The Terror Season 2 come out?

Following Season 1, AMC turned The Terror into an anthology series. Season 2, which started production back in January, will feature an entirely new cast, storyline, and even century. The show will still use a historical event as a jumping off point; Season 2 will be set in a Japanese internment camp in America during World War II. The season will star Derek Mio (Greek) as the son of Japanese immigrants who enlists to fight in WWII. TV legend George Takei, who was actually held in a Japanese internment camp during WWII, serves as a consultant on the season and will play a community elder held in two different camps. The rest of the cast includes Kiki Sukezane (Lost in Space), Shingo Usami, Naoko Mori (Absolutely Fabulous), Miki Ishikawa (Zoey 101), and C. Thomas Howell (Southland).

Season 2 of The Terror will premiere on AMC on August 12, 2019.

Where to stream The Terror