BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES
...because you’ll be chilled to the bone by the supernatural twist Ridley Scott adds to this drama about a doomed Arctic expedition
PICK OF THE WEEK
THE TERROR
AWednesday, BBC2, 9pm & 9.45pm s our world looks on with wonder at Nasa’s latest mission to Mars, a thrilling new drama recounts the fate of an earlier epic voyage to another remote wilderness, spicing up history with a terrifying supernatural twist.
In the middle of the 19th Century, the frozen wastes of the Arctic were an even more hostile place than they are today: reaching them required a dangerous sea voyage, provisions had to last months or even years, and if anything were to go wrong, there was absolutely no chance of rescue.
But the hope of finding the Northwest Passage – the long-rumoured nautical short cut between Europe and America – still lured explorers to brave the ice.
Then, in 1845, the Royal Navy dispatched an expedition commanded by Sir John Franklin (Ciarán Hinds, above), determined to succeed where previous attempts had failed.
Two state-of-the-art ships with reinforced hulls and three years’ worth of provisions set out across the ocean – HMS Erebus had Franklin on board, while HMS Terror was captained by his second-in-command, Francis Crozier (Jared Harris).
Yet their fate was not glory and a grand homecoming: the two men and their crew of more than 130 men were lost, never to be seen again.
From these facts, author Dan Simmons conjured a spellbinding best-selling novel in 2007, now adapted into a ten-part series being shown on terrestrial TV for the first time.
Executive producer Ridley Scott furnishes the show with a stunning Arctic landscape, while the two leads deliver performances worthy of the sweeping scale of the story, as the hard-nosed Crozier butts up against the ambitious Franklin.
But it is in the eerie, speculative tale of what might have happened to the two ships that the drama exerts its intense power, as hints of foreboding begin to rattle the crew when they come up against an inexplicably cruel force in their battle for survival.
How that plays out, you’ll have to wait and see, as the plot slowly reveals its many twists (impatient viewers can binge-watch the entire run on iPlayer after the opening week’s double bill has been aired).
But one thing is for sure: as the freezing wind howls above the blinding glare of endless white landscapes, this saga of doomed men facing something unknown at the edge of the world is truly chilling.