We Are Gone

I was first drawn to this series when I read someone compare it to Taboo. There some similarities for example the quality of the writing, the storytelling and the high calibre of acting. There are shades of John Carpenter's The Thing, and later on, The Shining, but it gives way to something higher, almost supernatural and spiritual. The last four episodes of this magnificent series have left me shaken and stunned and deeply moved. I can recommend this series wholeheartedly and say it is one of the best I've seen in the past years. That is up there with Breaking Bad and more recently, Mindhunter. The acting is of the highest calibre, with the performances by the almost exclusively male cast, just magnificent. Jared Harris will hopefully be rewarded come awards time, as should the series itself, its beautiful production design, score and cinematography. Just a brilliant series really. This series will linger for a very long time, in my mind.

The Terror comes to a conclusion. It really is a tale of morality, madness and monster mayhem.

The monster being the Tuunbaq and the men who resorted to cannibalism.

Crozier is brought to the camp to meet Hickey. Dr Goodsir leaves behind his poisoned body knowing that Hickey and his followers will not be able to resist his meat.

There is some startling imagery in the final episode. Hickey offering his tongue to the Tuunbaq. A bizarre and useless sacrifice. It looked like some of it was inspired by Dante's Inferno.

For Crozier there is a future but it is with the Inuit.

The series did suffer for being overlong with pace being glacial at times. The final run of the episodes in the first series, ramped up the pace and the horror.

This amazing and terrific series has many influences, though being adapted from a Dan Simmons'novel. We think about MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, THE THING, MAN IN THE WILDERNESS, with a bit slim slice of PREDATOR, but set in the ice setting and in the nineteenth century. I am not that surprised that Ridley Scott himself produced this show. This is truly a terrifying, intelligent and brillant piece of work, with a superb character study too, in addition to riveting, brutal, shocking actio scenes for the common viewer. But this show is not flawless, in my own point of view. It could have been a bit shorter, five épisodes, that would have spared the audiences some lengths. but, I repeat, that's my own opinion.

Exceptionally late, I've finally gotten around to watching the first season of "The Terror" which aired on the BBC towards the end of 2020, whilst of undoubted quality - ultimately the pace of the series started to lose me, and I ended up skipping most of the second half of the season, to come back for the finale.

A two-ship expedition led by Captain John Franklin (Ciaran Hinds) tries to find a fabled northwest passage to aid quicker transportation around the Northern Coast of Canada/North America. The ships become trapped in the ice, and are forced to spend more than one winter in the tundra. As isolation, frostbite and eventually starvation take their toll on the crew, they are also picked off by a polar bear so unfeasibly large, as to be the stuff of nightmares.

Despite the enviable quality of the cast, despite the (mostly) excellent CGI and practical effects work, "The Terror" was just too slow for my taste. It may indeed have been my loss, but I feel it's telling that I missed four episodes, came back for the finale and didn't feel like I'd missed anything that made me struggle to understand what had happened. It was only a sense of interest in what the conclusion would be, that kept me from giving up entirely. This is again, accepting the fact that some of these actors I think are extraordinarily good, Ciaran Hinds, Jared Harris, Tobias Menzies and Paul Ready.

If the opportunity to watch the second season appears, I will approach that with an open mind, but I hope it proves a touch more dynamic than this one.

This series better clean-up during awards season! The series was perfect! Perfect sound, production and acting especially Adam Nagaitis and Jared Harris. One Complaint: I wanted more of Cornelius Hickey's (well the man pretending to be Cornelius Hickey) backstory. He is evil yet captivating.