History YMMV / TheTerror

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: The villains are ravening psychopaths or unknowable eldritch horrors, while the heroes are... [[BlackAndGreyMorality flawed.]] Even the nicer characters like Goodsir and Jopsen slowly have their idealism eroded by the barren, godless landscape of the Arctic expanse. The expedition is [[spoiler: [[DoomedByCanon historically doomed to fail with no known survivors,]]]] and each episode just sees things grow even more hopeless, bleak, horrific. By the end of it all, [[spoiler: Crozier is the only survivor, (with all the other sympathetic characters having died in variously lurid ways) and he consciously decides ''not'' to return to Britain, as there is nothing for him there and the loss of his entire command has rendered it pointless anyway.]] It gives the ending an AllForNothing feel to it, really. About the only good thing that comes of it all is that the one of the various parties involved in the rescue expeditions coincidentally manage to find the Northwest Passage while they're at it... but like Dr. Goodsir said, that will be good for their ''economy.'' (Which seems in retrospect a rather frivolous thing to have hundreds of men to have '''died''' over)

* HateSink: It’s pretty hard not to despise [[spoiler: Hickey]] after the first couple of episodes.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Was [[spoiler: Hickey]] always a psychopath, or is he suffering from a lethal combination of MistreatmentInducedBetrayal and the effects of lead poisoning that leads him in turn to become unhinged? His actions are a mixture of savage impulse and cold, highly intelligent premeditation, so it's hard to tell.
** For the first three episodes the main characters are analogous to the cast of Series/StarTrek. Producer Ridley Scott emphasised the similarity between Victorian explorers and modern astronauts to the degree that Franklin provides a ShoutOut to the Starfleet mission statement in the first episode. Franklin is the arrogant but loveable Captain Kirk, Crozier the OnlySaneMan is Spock because he puts logic before personal glory, TheMedic BadassBookworm Goodsir is Bones, LonghairedPrettyBoy Fitzjames fills a similar role to the original MrFanservice Chekhov, and the elderly but resourceful Blanky is Scotty. The peaceful Eskimos are mistaken for TheSavageIndian in a similar way the Klingons from the new film series were misunderstood as warlike aggressors.

** For the first three episodes the main characters are analogous to the cast of Series/Star Trek. Producer Ridley Scott emphasised the similarity between Victorian explorers and modern astronauts to the degree that Franklin provides a ShoutOut to the Starfleet mission statement in the first episode. Franklin is the arrogant but loveable Captain Kirk, Crozier the OnlySaneMan is Spock because he puts logic before personal glory, TheMedic BadassBookworm Goodsir is Bones, LonghairedPrettyBoy Fitzjames fills a similar role to the original MrFanservice Chekhov, and the elderly but resourceful Blanky is Scotty. The peaceful Eskimos are mistaken for TheSavageIndian in a similar way the Klingons from the new film series were misunderstood as warlike aggressors.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance:
** Crozier and Hickey are discriminated against for being Irish.
** In one episode, two of ''Terror'''s crew are caught having sex in the ship's hold. This might not seem like a big deal to 21st-century audiences, but homosexual activity was a punishable offense in the Royal Navy of the 19th century (though technically [[SituationalSexuality only for the first 90 days out of port]]).
** There is also the use of "Esquimaux" (the period spelling) and "Eskie" to refer to Lady Silence and her father. While "Eskimo" is still used today as an ethnic descriptor, particularly by the Yupik people of Alaska, it has become considered a pejorative term by aboriginal Canadian peoples and has dropped out of official use.

* MoralEventHorizon: You can take your pick with Cornelius Hickey. [[spoiler:Is it when he murders Irving and an entire Inuit family, including a child, just to undermine Crozier, and then subsequently mutilates Irving's body? Is it when he kidnaps Goodsir? Is it when he ruthlessly kills his former lover Billy for being ill and then eats his body? Maybe it's when he butchers Goodsir's body, leaving him out on a slab like an undignified hunk of meat, or when he forces Crozier to partake. Or when he knocks out his henchman Tozer and forces him, alongside the others, into a suicidal mission. However, it might have come before all that...when he killed the real Cornelius Hickey and stole his identity just for quick passage.]]

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Was Hickey always a psychopath, or is he suffering from a lethal combination of MistreatmentInducedBetrayal and the effects of lead poisoning that leads him in turn to become unhinged? His actions are a mixture of savage impulse and cold, highly intelligent premeditation, so it's hard to tell.

* {{Tearjerker}}:
** [[spoiler:Sir John's witheringly brutal TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to Crozier, which hits at every one of Crozier's insecurities. It's the deciding end to any potential friendship between the two. It's more than a little heartbreaking to see Jared Harris' expression crumble in on itself in a display of vulnerability before he attempts to gather up his dignity and leave.]]
** [[spoiler:Sir John probably shouldn't be as sympathetic as he is, since it's his actions that land both ships in a dangerous situation (not to mention his bigoted nature and his cruel TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to Crozier). Ciarán Hinds, however, lends the character a certain tragic air and his desire to redeem his reputation is (if selfish) very relatable. As such, his agonizing and brutal death is not only terrifying but very upsetting. His confusion and fear is very keenly felt, as he blunders through the snow pursued by an unstoppable force, all of which is interspersed by snatched glimpses of his life at home. In his final moments, he was as human as anyone: scared, in pain, confused, and desperately missing home. Even Crozier sheds a tear or two at Sir John's funeral.]]

* VisualEffectsofAwesome: The show has been widely praised by critics for the quality of its sets and VFX. The Arctic ice scapes are considered particularly impressive, since they were almost entirely created with CGI; [[http://www.indiewire.com/2018/04/the-terror-location-cgi-not-shot-outside-1201945793/ the series was actually shot on a sound stage in Budapest!]]

** Crozier and Hickey are subtly discriminated against for being Irish.

* CrossesTheLineTwice: [[spoiler:Franklin getting his leg ripped off by the creature and set plummeting down an ice hole to his death? Horrifying. His severed leg then tidied up and buried in a full size coffin, for lieu of anything else to bury? Bizarrely and darkly funny.]]

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: In one episode, two of ''Terror'''s crew are caught having sex in the ship's hold. This might not seem like a big deal to 21st-century audiences, but homosexual activity was a punishable offense in the Royal Navy of the 19th century (though technically [[SituationalSexuality only for the first 90 days out of port]]). There is also the use of "Esquimaux" (the period spelling) and "Eskie" to refer to Lady Silence and her father. While "Eskimo" is still used today as an ethnic descriptor, particularly by the Yupik people of Alaska, it has become considered a pejorative term by aboriginal Canadian peoples and has dropped out of official use.

* VisualEffectsofAwesome: The show has been widely praised by critics for the quality of its sets and VFX. The Arctic icescapes are considered particularly impressive, since they were almost entirely created with CGI.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: In one episode, two of ''Terror'''s crew are caught having sex in the ship's hold. This might not seem like a big deal to 21st-century audiences, but homosexual activity was a punishable offense in the Royal Navy of the 19th century. There is also the use of "Esquimaux" (the period spelling) and "Eskie" to refer to Lady Silence and her father. While "Eskimo" is still used today as an ethnic descriptor, particularly by the Yupik people of Alaska, it has become considered a pejorative term by aboriginal Canadian peoples and has dropped out of official use.

* CompleteMonster: [[SmugSnake Shipman Cornelius Hickey]] is a ruthless, ratlike man with a penchant for manipulating others. Murdering his rival Irving, Hickey frames the local Esquimax people, resulting in their massacre. Leading a mutiny against Captain Crozier, Hickey slaughters all who oppose him and [[ColdBloodedTorture tortures]] the ship's doctor Goodsir, so he cuts them up for Hickey and others to [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalize]]. Mocking Crozier by killing his second-in-command and presenting Crozier with the man's right arm, Hickey attempts to murder Crozier and keep Goodsir in line via increased torture until the man kills himself to escape. Hickey ends up being [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters so vile]] that even the monstrous, soul devouring Tuunbaq on the arctic ice finds his soul [[TooSpicyForYogSothoth too unclean to devour]].
* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: If knowing that it's based on a real-life Arctic expedition [[spoiler: that ended in total failure]] doesn't cause this to set in, the sheer number of unlikable characters (and the few decent characters dying or hitting the DespairEventHorizon early on) and the constant [[YankTheDogsChain jerking on their chains]] will.

* CompleteMonster: [[SmugSnake Shipman Cornelius Hickey]] is a ruthless, ratlike man with a penchant for manipulating others. Murdering his rival Irving, Hickey frames the local Esquimax people, resulting in their massacre. Leading a mutiny]] against Captain Crozier, Hickey slaughters all who oppose him and [[ColdBloodedTorture tortures]] the ship's doctor Goodsir, so he cuts them up for Hickey and others to [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalize]]. Mocking Crozier by killing his second-in-command and presenting Crozier with the man's right arm, Hickey attempts to murder Crozier and keep Goodsir in line via increased torture until the man kills himself to escape. Hickey ends up being [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters so vile]] that even the monstrous, soul devouring Tuunbaq on the arctic ice finds his soul [[TooSpicyForYogSothoth too unclean to devour]].

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: If knowing that it's set on a real-life Arctic expedition [[spoiler: that ended in total failure]] doesn't cause this to set in, the sheer number of unlikable characters (and the few decent characters dying or hitting the DespairEventHorizon early on) and the constant [[YankTheDogsChain jerking on their chains]] will.

* TookTheBadFilmSeriously: Creator/BorisKarloff and Creator/JackNicholson. As James Rolfe noted in his Monster Madness review of the movie, you wouldn't expect the latter to be the famous actor he eventually became if one only knew him from ''The Terror''.