The Terror

[smithcorp]

New AMC series - not sure if its available on streaming services here yet, but the usual places have the whole 10-part series. Highly recommended. Historical horror based on the 1840s Franklin expedition to find the fabled North West Passage in the Arctic.

The expedition was two ships, the HMS Terror and the HMS Erebus. They got stuck in pack ice for two years, abandoned the ships to walk to safety and disappeared. More than a century later, bodies of expedition members were discovered in some marked graves (like John Torrington - https://owlcation.com/humanities/johntorrington), incredibly well-preserved in the cold conditions. Autopsies determined that lead poisoning was a key factor in their deaths. This expedition was one of the first to use the new technology of canning food. A mixture of incomplete cooking, poor canning and the lead solder used to seal the tins doomed the men. They would have had terrible hallucinations and health breakdowns.

Over the next decades more evidence turned up, including bones showing evidence of cannibalism, eyewitness reports from Eskimos and then the finding of the ships which had been smashed by the ice. There's barely any written evidence of the fate of the expedition, so its a real mystery.

The series is beautiful and an authentic period piece but, based on a book by Dan Simmons called The Terror, adds a mysterious bear-like beast that stalks the expedition. Its really good - check it out.

http://www.amc.com/shows/the-terror

smiss

[norbs]

Thanks Smiss. Will it terrify me?

[smithcorp]

Maybe... it scares the willies out of me (Hitchikers Guide reference)

[norbs]

Plowed through it over the weekend. Not bad Smiss.

A bit slow at times, but pretty good. Im not sure if the title is the ship, or the beast.

[smithcorp]

We just finished it too. Only issue was lack of subs in the eskimo language scenes but i liked it immensely. Liked the pace, the attention to detail in the costumes and sets. The monster was a little bit lame at times, but I thought the whole thing was a good demo of the misery and hopelessness of that expedition. Imagine spending three years stuck in those ships and then, just when the scurvy and lead poisoning are at their worst, deciding to try to walk hundreds of miles pulling heavy boats loaded with china plates and massive stoves.

Franklin was known as The Man Who Ate His Boots from a previous expedition; and some of the teams walking out could only manage a mile and a half per day. Amazing.

[norbs]

Not sure how you watch Smiss, but Kodi has add ons for subscene etc. Works really well.

Wasnt sure what Mr Kickey thought he was doing at the end, although I suspect that was the lead doing the chopping.

[smithcorp]

Not sure how you watch Smiss, but Kodi has add ons for subscene etc. Works really well.

So you could see subs?

[norbs]

Not sure how you watch Smiss, but Kodi has add ons for subscene etc. Works really well.

So you could see subs?

Yup. But I have them on all the time because my hearing is fucked.

[smithcorp]

So I watch stuff off my NAS via my Fetch TV box, using whatever the player is that it uses. I tried turning text on but no dice.