LAST MAN STANDING (THE TERROR)

 

In the town of Banbridge in the heart of County Down in Northern Ireland, a statue stands of Captain Francis Crozier.

One of Banbridge's forgotten sons, Crozier was an accomplished Naval man who rose through the ranks as an explorer and astronomer but then disappeared while taking part in an ill fated Polar voyage led by Sir John Franklin.

The monument erected in his honour in his hometown in 1862 is adorned with carvings of polar bears.

Thanks to AMC's miniseries 'The Terror,' Crozier is unlikely to be forgotten in future.

Developed by the American playwright David Kajganich, 'The Terror' is a gruelling 10 episode miniseries that speculates about the fate that befell the crews of HMS Terror and HMS Erebus who took part in the Franklin expedition.

With Ridley Scott on board as an executive producer, viewers could be forgiven for thinking the miniseries directed by Edward Berger, Sergio Mimica-Gezzan and Tim Mielanta is like a period drama version of 'Alien' or 'Alien Covenant'.

But more on that later.

Jared Harris stars as Crozier, heading an accomplished cast of mostly British and Irish actors that includes Ciaran Hinds as Franklin and Tobias Menzies as Commander James Fitzjames.

Early on we learn that Crozier had hoped to marry Sir John's niece but because of his humble beginnings and Irish background was deemed unsuitable.

Serving as Franklin's second in command, he cuts a surly figure in the initial episodes - often clashing with Fitzjames as their Arctic Circle expedition gets bogged down in the ice damaging the Erebus as the ships attempt to cross the Northwest passage 

Crozier is concerned the Erebus could get stranded and proposes the crew be transferred onto the Terror, so they can head south.

However he is overruled by Sir John Franklin and insists on heading west before the onset of thick ice.

It is a fatal mistake and both ships become trapped, with the crews having to dig in and sit out the winter in the hope that the ice will thaw and they will eventually be able to shift the Terror and the Erebus.

As winter passes, Franklin sends parties out to discover passages that will lead both ships to safety.

One party heading east finds nothing, another heading west accidentally shoots an Inuit man, mistaking him fir a polar bear.

In the resulting melee, a huge polar bear kills Tom Weston-Jones' Lieutenant Gore.

The wounded Inuit is brought back to the Erebus with his daughter, Nive Nielsen's Lady Silence and Lieutenant Gore's mutilated corpse but the medics, Alistair Petrie's Dr Stanley and his junior Paul Ready's Doctor Henry Goodsir are unable to save his life.

The dying man is a Shaman who tells his daughter before passing away, she must control the creature that attacked Lieutenant Gore which is called 'The Tunnbaq'.

The crew apologise to Lady Silence and bury her father but after she leaves the boats, the crew sustains heavy casualties as the Tuunbaq returns.

Unable to move both boats and hemmed in by severe Arctic conditions, they also become reliant on tinned food until it becomes apparent that it is actually poisoning some members of both crews.

And not only that but one member of the crew, Adam Nagaitas' manipulative Cornelius Hickey blackmails officers, whips up fears and stokes mutinous thoughts as tensions rise over the heavy death toll.

What emerges is a gripping but gruelling show whose narrative beats in some ways are not that dissimilar to the 'Alien' movies, with beloved crew members suddenly and brutally picked off by the Tunnbaq just when you least expect it, a traitor operating in the crews' midst and an overwhelming sense of doom.

Kajganich and his fellow writers Soo Hugh, Gina Welch, Josh Parkinson, Vinnie Wilhelm and Andres Fischer-Centeno do a great job adapting Dan Simmons' 2007 novel which fictionalised the Franklin expedition.

Berger, Mimica-Gezzan and Mielanta also do fantastic work ratcheting up the tension, with the help of Florian Hoffmeister, Kolja Brandt and Frank van den Eeden's stark cinematography which gives the icy tundra the feel of a different planet.

While the CGI effects don't quite come up to big budget Hollywood standards, the directors still manage to turn the Tunnbaq into a fearsome creature.

However there is a sense that the creature is a reflection of the savagery that Hickey is capable of and that it not consumes people's flesh but sucks their spirit out of them before death.

The performances are universally good.

Despite a wobbly accent that seems to take in every Irish county, Harris is a commanding presence and his performance is reminiscent of the one he delivered as Valery Legasov in 'Chernobyl'.

Like Legasov, the Inuit speaking Crozier is a man of honour and integrity who has to overcome his superiors' obstinacy and prejudices - although he is not without his own flaws.

Hinds embraces the establishment arrogance of Franklin, while imbuing him with a sentimental desire to relate to his crew.

Menzies enjoys the opportunity to play a pompous social climber who shows open disdain for Crozier, yet grows to respect him once adversity really sets in.

Ready brings a lot of heart and integrity to the part of the diligent and moral Dr Goodsir who is also fluent in the Inuit tongue and he gels very well with Nielsen whose Lady Silence is an intriguing presence.

The counter to Goodsir is Nagatis' canny performance as the cunning crewman Hickey.

Nagatis avoids going for pantomime villainry and eye rolling lunacy, subtly building up his character's gift for manipulation and eventual insubordinacy.

The always reliable Ian Hart also impresses as Crozier's wooden legged friend and confidante, Thomas Blanky and John Lynch's softness proves a real asset in the later episodes as John Bridgens.

In truth, there isn't a poor performance whether it is David Walmsley as one of Hickey's co-conspirators Sergeant Solomon Tozer, Ronan Raftery as Lieutenant John Irving, Alistair Petrie as Dr Stanley, Clive Russell as Sir John Ross of the Admiralty or Greta Scacchi as Lady Franklin.

Occasionally, over the course of the ten episodes, the pace and tension of 'The Terror' slackens.

But these are rare blips in a very well crafted tale.

In real life, there were Inuit reports of sightings of Crozier and another crew member between 1852 and 1858 - between seven and thirteen years from the start of the expedition that never saw the return of its 129 crewmen to Britain.

AMC's 'The Terror' not only provides a gripping, highly speculative account of that tragedy but it will whet your appetite to find out more about what really happened.

And that is no mean feat.

('The Terror' was originally broadcast on AMC in the United States on March 25-May 21, 2018 and on the BBC iPlayer in the United Kingdom on March 3, 2021)