If you would like to spend some of your socially distant time to explain to the masses what The Terror is all about and why we should watch it, I can think of at least one person (that's me) who would be extremely grateful. Obviously no pressure here, I'm just intrigued but also sort of wary because straight-up horror is nothing something I can really deal with? (Either way, the posts you've made are excellent, ty.)
THANK YOU for this lovely question and sorry it took so long to answer, i get long winded about this show. here is a post for you and for anyone else who still wonders what the hell the terror is and whether or not it’s something they might be interested in!
amc’s the terror season 1 is about the franklin expedition, a very real and very ill fated voyage that two royal navy ships made to the canadian arctic in 1845. 129 people sailed off the edge of the map and presumably all died, leaving behind a trail of battered artifacts, cryptic notes, and some bones that show evidence of cannibalism. some facts have been pieced together over the years but a LOT is still unknown, and the terror is a fictional (and slightly fantastical) take on the missing pages of that story. which sounds sad and gruesome and IT IS. it’s about fear, death, and the folly of imperialism. but it’s ALSO about how this extreme situation causes the characters grow and connect and show tenderness towards each other. my all time favorite description of the terror is this tweet:
the terror is a study of the human condition using the crew as a society in miniature. it’s about a lot of things, and everyone gets something different out of it. but the message that stuck with ME the most is this: no matter how bleak the situation is, we should try to be good to each other. compassion is hard work and it doesn’t solve everything, but inevitable tragedy doesn’t make that effort pointless, if anything it makes it all the more precious. the most heroic characters strive towards empathy and emotional intelligence, and the characters who “fail” are the ones who let fear and bitterness make them selfish. and yet the story has sympathy for all of them, while letting none of them off the hook entirely.
the terror presents heavy moral conundrums without ever moralizing, forces you to question your initial assumptions, invites you to supply your own interpretations. it is elliptical, ambiguous, layered, designed to be rewatched and analyzed scene by scene. the cinematography and soundtrack are eerily beautiful, the attention to period detail is stunning, the acting is brilliant (note: all these white dudes in similar uniforms are notoriously hard to tell apart at first. it gets easier i promise. also this guide can help). the genre is hard to pin down - it behaves like horror when the characters FEEL horrified. it’s a monster story where the monster is sort of beside the point. an age of sail period drama with barely any sailing, a science fiction story with no real sci fi elements, a war story without a war and a post apocalyptic story without an apocalypse. occasionally it is a workplace comedy! like it’s important to note that the terror isn’t just a melancholy slog - it is fucking HILARIOUS, often morbidly, but sometimes joyously. it made me feel emotions i have literally never felt before. it’s unlike anything else i have ever seen. watch it on amazon, hulu, or here ;)
more behind the cut about some general, spoiler free, but hopefully thorough descriptions of disturbing content/horror elements so you know what to expect!
Upon reading all of the theories on what went wrong in season three of The 100 I would like to add a few more points. A major difference between the first two seasons and this current one is the absence of hope. The first two seasons set up odds and obstacles that our main characters needed to overcome. For the most part, they did. Even when it became ugly or dark or impossible, they still found a path to survival. Regardless of how bad it got, we still believed in their abilities to find a way and not lose the core of who they were in the process. Yes, they lost some aspects of their innocence along the way but there was a strong collective sense of rooting for them to succeed and to stay in tact as they do. This is mostly because we felt an investment into the characters lives and wanted them to come out of everything stronger than ever.
At this point the show has become unrecognizable because our mains have become unrecognizable. The framing of the show, the foundation, the core values have changed. It has lost itself entirely to the point of no return. What it lost in the rushing of stories, in the grim darkness of unnecessary scenes, in the shock value of senseless deaths, is its defining factors. The heart of the show has changed and many viewers can feel that difference.
It’s all over the place, trying to tell a story that no one wants to follow. It forgot that the heart of survival is love and relationships. It forgot that the reason people watch shows is because they feel a deep connection to the characters and root for their survival, joy, and success. It forgot that people see themselves reflected in characters and gain hope for themselves through them. It lost itself to a narrative that it placed above characters. It forgot that the sci-fi aspect was the setting in which our mains existed and responded to, and instead it tried to turn it into the center of the show. And this is where it ultimately failed. It sacrificed too much of what its viewers held valuable to further a plot that wasn’t at all for two whole seasons.
Ultimately, it lost itself to the media hype. It lost itself to unanimous praise in the press. It became too cocky and ego-driven. The need to make it more shocking in order to keep the press/audience talking eventually led to its downfall. It became senseless and dark for the sake of darkness. It lost its purpose. It lost its edge by trying to be too edgy.
Most importantly, it lost the hope it had given its audience. This season created irreversible damage to the storylines and characters we had grown to love. There is no coming back from that. The story has changed, the characters have changed, and the audience has changed.
I’ve seen a lot of people arguing that The 100 has always been dark, it’s always killed a lot of people, so there’s no reason to be up in arms over this season doing the same. Even if we leave aside all the problematic social politics of exactly who it has killed and how, the carnage in season 3 just feels different. This post is right: it’s because it got caught up in its own hype, took the comparisons to Game of Thrones to heart, and became dark for darkness’s sake.
The 100 has always been dark, that’s true, but it used to be dark because it was about moral dilemmas, characters caught between a rock and a hard place, having to choose between two terrible options. We’ve been able to sympathize with and love them anyway because there has always been this element of necessity hanging over these big, plot-driving decisions. Cull the 300 volunteers or everyone on the Ark dies. Kill Finn, or Camp Jaha is wiped out. Let the missile hit the village, or leave everyone in the Mountain to die. Irradiate the Mountain or let your friends and family be tortured to death. These were impossible choices where there was no right answer. There was no way to avoid someone dying, it was just a question of who.
The same can’t be said of the deaths that have driven season 3. There was no imminent threat that forced Pike & co. to massacre Indra’s army or face some other end that was just as bad. No one else’s life was saved by attacking Semet’s village. Titus wasn’t caught between a rock and a hard place when he decided to shoot Clarke. Pike wasn’t having to weigh the cost of executing Lincoln against some other death that would certainly come if he didn’t.
The show used to generate drama by creating hard choices and forcing characters to struggle with them. Now, it creates drama by having characters make bad choices and forcing everyone else to struggle with the mess that results. It’s gone from focusing on moral dilemmas to moral failures. Sure, they’re both drama. But one was a lot smarter, more unusual, and more compelling than the other, and it’s a shame that the show’s creators didn’t recognize that.
King of France: and why the fuck would we send money and assistance to those resisting their sovereign??
Advisor: well it would be a big 'fuck you' to England
King of France: send funds to America
I’m so exhausted with the notion that if #SandraBland would have kept quiet she would have been alive. That as black people we need to be “smart” and listen. That she should have never mouthed off at the officer. All of this respectability politics nonsense ignores the civil rights movement. It ignores changes that came about as a result of not listening. What would happen if civil rights leaders would have listened? Would have not mouthed off? Would have kept quiet?
At what point did we convince ourselves it is our duty to keep an officer from killing us even when we’ve done nothing wrong? At one point did we take on this burden?
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