History YMMV / TheTerror

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: 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 Inuit are mistaken for TheSavageIndian in a similar way the Klingons from the new film series were misunderstood as warlike aggressors.

* FriendlyFandoms: With fans of ''Series/Chernobyl'', due to the shows sharing two actors and being similar in tone. In some cases the fandoms overlap.

* {{EnsembleDarkhorse}}: Thomas Blanky, the only thing on the Arctic Ice that's [[MadeOfIron tougher than the Tuunbaq.]]

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Thomas Blanky, the only thing on the Arctic Ice that's [[MadeOfIron tougher than the Tuunbaq.]]

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: The villains are ravening psychopaths or unknowable eldritch horrors, while the heroes are... [[BlackAndGreyMorality flawed.]] Even the nicer characters like Goodsir and Jopson 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 left for him there and the loss of his entire command has rendered it pointless anyway.]] It gives [[DownerEnding the ending]] an AllForNothing feel to it, really. About the only good thing that comes of it all is that one of the various parties involved in the rescue expeditions coincidentally manages 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 for [[spoiler: hundreds of men]] to have '''died''' over)

* SugarWiki/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!]]

* 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? The hint that he found, dug up, looted and devoured Fitzjames' body? 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.]]

* [[AnimalMetaphor The Tuunbaq is a physical representation of the difficulties and horrors that confronted the Franklin Expedition itself]]. [[ImplacableMan It is relentless]] like the troubles that assailed Franklin and his men. It seems as though its actions are done with a view to compound the Expedition's misery ForTheEvulz. For example, had the tinned food not been lead poisoned and properly sealed Franklin's men might have had just enough strength to make it to mainland Canada. Finally, Franklin's men were - from the sites of their last camp sites - able to find the Northwest passage, completing their objective and in some senses beating the environment and their difficulties but, as with what it costs them in the Series to finally kill the Tuunbaq, only at the greatest cost in a manner that makes their eventual triumph a PyrrhicVictory.

* CompleteMonster: "[[EvilIsPetty Cornelius Hickey]]" of the ''HMS Terror'' is in truth a stowaway who murdered the real Cornelius Hickey and stole his identity. On the ''HMS Terror'', Hickey would blackmail a sailor into having sex with him and would attempt to murder the Inuit shaman "Lady Silence". Abandoning the ''HMS Terror'' when it gets stuck on Arctic ice, Hickey would murder his own hunting party and frame an innocent Inuit family for the deed resulting in their murders, [[WouldHurtAChild children included]]. Separating from Captain Francis Croizer and kidnapping Dr. Henry "Harry" Goodsir, Hickey would kill his own sexual partner and force Goodsir to butcher the body for Hickey and his men to [[ImAHumanitarian eat]], threatening to do such to Goodsir if he doesn't comply to Hickey's demands. Finding Goodsir to have committed suicide, Hickey mutilates Goodsir's corpse and forces Crozier to partake in the cannibalism before having him and his own men in chains to use as bait for [[AnimalisticAbomination The Tuunbaq]] while Hickey attempts to control the Beast. The Tuunbaq would die trying to devour Cornelius Hickey because of how [[TooSpicyForYogSothoth utterly vile Hickey's soul truly was]].

* FunnyMoments: In "Go for Broke", Tozer tells Hickey to fill up Young's grave. Hickey flips him off as soon as he turns his back, and then, when Tozer turns around, quickly turns it into a thumbs-up.

** After Fitzjames’s confession of his origins in Episode 8, the crew LeftTheCameraRunning, prompting Menzies (according to Harris) to worry that he’d forgotten a line and whisper “What are we supposed to be doing?” Harris replied, “I think we’re supposed to make out?”

* CompleteMonster: [[SmugSnake Caulker's Mate 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]].

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: 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.

* AuthorSavingThrow: The series solves the book's problem of Hickey being a psychopathic villain while ''also'' being based on a real life and blameless man, [[spoiler:by adding the twist that show 'Hickey' is in fact an impostor who murdered the real man and stole his identity.]]

* CrowningMomentOfAwesome:
** Fitzjames [[spoiler:firing rockets into the Tuunbaq and driving it off, showing he's every bit the hero he privately feared he wasn't.]]
** [[spoiler:Goodsir showing that he isn't just some naive doctor, but a genuinely good man who possesses great resevoirs of inner strength. He bravely stands up to Hickey without an ounce of fear, only relenting when someone else is threated.]]
** Thomas Blankly is a BadassGrandpa extraordinaire. [[spoiler:He outwits and survives numerous encounters with the Tuunbaq, survives the amputation of his leg, doesn't let his lost limb slow him down and when he does die, it's by his own choice and for the greater good: sacrificing himself to lure the Tuunbaq away, decorating himself with cutlerly to make the creature have a tough time eating him, and he even becomes the first man to discover the passage! He even gets a FacingTheBulletsOneLiner combined with PrecisionFStrike. The Tuunbaq probably took so long finding him because it was afraid of this utter badass.]]

* 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!]]

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: The villains are ravening psychopaths or unknowable eldritch horrors, while the heroes are... [[BlackAndGreyMorality flawed.]] Even the nicer characters like Goodsir and Jopson 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 left for him there and the loss of his entire command has rendered it pointless anyway.]] It gives [[DownerEnding 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 for [[spoiler: hundreds of men]] to have '''died''' over)

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: The villains are ravening psychopaths or unknowable eldritch horrors, while the heroes are... [[BlackAndGreyMorality flawed.]] Even the nicer characters like Goodsir and Jopson 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 left for him there and the loss of his entire command has rendered it pointless anyway.]] It gives [[DownerEnding 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 for hundreds of men to have '''died''' over)

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: The villains are ravening psychopaths or unknowable eldritch horrors, while the heroes are... [[BlackAndGreyMorality flawed.]] Even the nicer characters like Goodsir and Jopson 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 left for him there and the loss of his entire command has rendered it pointless anyway.]] It gives [[DownerEnding 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)

* 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 [[DownerEnding 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)