"The Terror"

The intersections of history and modern cultural obsessions are many and fascinating. Most significantly, although Dan Simmons' original novel centered around the "Tuunbaq" (more properly known in Inuktitut as Torngat), the producers of the AMC series, David Kajganich and Soo Hugh, have moved the monster to the margins for a time -- giving other, more human horrors (scurvy, lead poisoning, and cannibalism) time to work their magic. Time is also space, and as the men depart the cocoon of the ships and spread out on the land, the story darkens even as sun floods the scene.

Although I didn't work with the producers directly, they made use of my research, and one scene in Episode 1 -- where Franklin and Crozier attend a "tableau vivant" depicting James Clark Ross's Antarctic voyage (on which Crozier served as his second) -- a depiction drawn from similar shows described in my book Arctic Spectacles. Later episodes take pages -- quite literally -- from the mysterious "Peglar Papers" found on one of the bodies of Franklin's men, and about which I've written extensively; two of the episodes even take their title from phrases in these papers. Two years ago, star Jared Harris (in person) and co-producer Kajganich (virtually) visited RIC, and talked about the show with students in my Arctic Encounters and Victorian Lit courses. Despite the somber nature of the subject matter, the discussion was a lively and jovial one, as you can see!

There are many entry points to the story -- you can check out my reviews, written in collaboration with Stephen Smith, which appeared on the Canadian Geographic website. The FX company responsible for the show's amazing visuals, UPP, has a reel showing how the magic worked.  The show-runners have done several interviews, some with cast members, which you can see here and here and (with even more of the cast) here. It's important to know that this show was many years in the making -- Kajganich told us that he had originally scripted it as a feature film -- and, as so often happens, it was only by indirections that this story found its direction out.