The Terror: Punished, as a Boy
April 9, 2018 7:11 PM - Season 1, Episode 4 - Subscribe
A series of cunning attacks on the ships proves to the men they are not battling an ordinary bear. (IMDB)
I absolutely love this show. It is so bleak and self contained and perfect. There's an unwavering confidence in the audience's intelligence that is so refreshing. We've been absolutely loving it.
posted by Catblack at 8:36 PM on April 10, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by Catblack at 8:36 PM on April 10, 2018 [10 favorites]
I have read the book (more than once, I love a good disaster story!) but my husband has not. he is really enjoying the show and its fun to watch him experience this vast terrifying place with me.
posted by supermedusa at 9:43 AM on April 11, 2018
posted by supermedusa at 9:43 AM on April 11, 2018
I'm gonna go ahead and assert that the show's better than the book. Come at me, Simmonsites.
Currently hoped-for final scene of the series:
Goodsir and the monkey recline on a tropical beach, umbrella'd drinks in hand and paw.
GOODSIR (lowering sunglasses): You now what? I think I could get used to this.
CUT TO credits, cue music: Journey's "Any Way You Want It."
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:56 AM on April 11, 2018 [11 favorites]
Currently hoped-for final scene of the series:
Goodsir and the monkey recline on a tropical beach, umbrella'd drinks in hand and paw.
GOODSIR (lowering sunglasses): You now what? I think I could get used to this.
CUT TO credits, cue music: Journey's "Any Way You Want It."
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:56 AM on April 11, 2018 [11 favorites]
No, I agree with you! The book had Issues with women. Normally when I read a book or see a movie with an all-male cast, I am glad to know in advance that there won't be any awful women characters. But Sophia is bizarrely anachronistic and mean, and Lady Silence is ... she's smart and capable, but she falls into a lot of stereotypes about native women, and I did not like the ending that she had. I thought she was too good for it. If this series can go ahead and not do any of those things, that would be great.
The pacing of the show is also a lot better, by necessity. The book has a hallucinatory quality, both compelling and frustrating. I thought of quitting several times, but it had to go back to the library and I wanted to see what happened at the end.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:10 PM on April 11, 2018 [3 favorites]
The pacing of the show is also a lot better, by necessity. The book has a hallucinatory quality, both compelling and frustrating. I thought of quitting several times, but it had to go back to the library and I wanted to see what happened at the end.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:10 PM on April 11, 2018 [3 favorites]
It's nice to see the brutality in the "civilized" culture the ship's officers still strive to maintain. That whipping surely would've been a staunch deterrent for me, but it looks to have galvanized a possible mutiny. Their genteel habits, like using cut-glass tumblers and murmuring worshipful sermons about manifest destiny, are almost galling in this raw environment. When men start starving, I'm betting the panic will push them to riot.
It's sad but my first thought at the sight of another death is, oh good, the provisions will stretch a little longer. Some of the violence is a bit raw, but I'm glad it's not exclusively due to the climate or location.
Just everyday life can be brutal, given the right circumstances.
That shot of the bear's face in the snow was *heart emoji eyes*
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 2:40 PM on April 12, 2018 [2 favorites]
It's sad but my first thought at the sight of another death is, oh good, the provisions will stretch a little longer. Some of the violence is a bit raw, but I'm glad it's not exclusively due to the climate or location.
Just everyday life can be brutal, given the right circumstances.
That shot of the bear's face in the snow was *heart emoji eyes*
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 2:40 PM on April 12, 2018 [2 favorites]
(And what was in that packet of his? Extra crap saved for a rainy day?)
Presumably a shipmate left him a little wad of tobacco by way of thanking him for the initiative he showed and the action he took in going out and grabbing the Inuit woman. The show was attempting to communicate to both the character and the audience that when Hickey raises a mutiny, he'll have men.
(haven't read the book)
posted by mwhybark at 11:19 PM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
Presumably a shipmate left him a little wad of tobacco by way of thanking him for the initiative he showed and the action he took in going out and grabbing the Inuit woman. The show was attempting to communicate to both the character and the audience that when Hickey raises a mutiny, he'll have men.
(haven't read the book)
posted by mwhybark at 11:19 PM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
And what's the deal with the exposed-brain guy? Please tell me there are not going to be arctic zombies in this show. Please.
posted by mwhybark at 11:21 PM on April 29, 2018
posted by mwhybark at 11:21 PM on April 29, 2018
I just watched these first four episodes last night, and I'm really enjoying the show so far. I'm susceptible enough to the classic tropes of horror filmmaking they use that I've been making the cat sit with me so I can hug him when it gets Too Scary.
I can't remember if it was this episode or the last one, but I was surprised and delighted by the scene where Captain Hubris' wife goes to the Royal Navy to beg them to look for her husband. You really haven't been set up to like or be impressed by that character, and then she totally undermines that perception over the course of the scene. Just a really well done piece of character-building.
I'm a bit surprised at all the Hickey hate in these threads so far - maybe I'm just always gonna be primed to like the gay character, but I see him more as an optimistic, maybe-not-as-smart-as-he-thinks-he-is risk-taker than as a smarmy asshole. (Clearly he made a poor choice in this episode, but it was essentially the same thing that Crozier was planning to do the next day, anyway.)
Given the character's background, I was also a bit thrown by the way that the "punished as a boy" scene was shot - to me it felt weirdly eroticised, but I'm not sure if that was intentional and, if so, what the show's purpose was in making it that way.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:53 AM on June 10, 2019
I can't remember if it was this episode or the last one, but I was surprised and delighted by the scene where Captain Hubris' wife goes to the Royal Navy to beg them to look for her husband. You really haven't been set up to like or be impressed by that character, and then she totally undermines that perception over the course of the scene. Just a really well done piece of character-building.
I'm a bit surprised at all the Hickey hate in these threads so far - maybe I'm just always gonna be primed to like the gay character, but I see him more as an optimistic, maybe-not-as-smart-as-he-thinks-he-is risk-taker than as a smarmy asshole. (Clearly he made a poor choice in this episode, but it was essentially the same thing that Crozier was planning to do the next day, anyway.)
Given the character's background, I was also a bit thrown by the way that the "punished as a boy" scene was shot - to me it felt weirdly eroticised, but I'm not sure if that was intentional and, if so, what the show's purpose was in making it that way.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:53 AM on June 10, 2019
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I appreciated the fact that, despite Hickey being someone who deserves a beating, the flogging scene was so brutal that he commanded your sympathies right away, despite the added dread of the thought that this will not make him any nicer of a man. (And what was in that packet of his? Extra crap saved for a rainy day?)
Goodsir is such a cinnamon roll. I think they are pretty far afield from the book at this point; maybe he will die less of a horrible death than I expected.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:19 PM on April 9, 2018 [13 favorites]