Summary: Captain John Franklin leads his crew to find the Northwest Passage on 2 ships, The Terror and The Erebus. After The Erebus gets caught in ice, Francis wants to harbour both ships for the winter, but Franklin chooses to press on, getting a crew member to dislodge the ice. One of the crew members, David, gets mysteriously sick and dies. He is buried in a coffin with a loose lid. After 6 days, The Terror and The Erebus get trapped in the ice and are seemingly stuck for the winter.
The Good: This show really has a Ridley Scott horror feeling to it, reminiscent of the first Alien movie. There is a real uncomfortable tension brought in by outstanding visuals with bleak colouring creating a sense of foreboding in a lot of the scenes. Furthermore, the cramped cinematography gives off a claustrophobic feel, which is aided by the presence of a huge amount of crew-members which occupy almost all empty space, and also some fantastic sound design which accounts for the gentle flowing water and the creaks and groans as the ships travel. While very little has happened so far, there has been a unique slow-burn tension present in the entire episode, similar to the first hour of the "Alien" movie. Hell, there is even a scene which reminded me of the famous "chest-burster" scene from that film. The characters in the show are simplistic so far, but we get a good idea of who they are. Captain Franklin is a good man, and though he made a poor decision by pressing forwards, he clearly doesn't do it for greed and ambition, but rather in an attempt to keep the crew optimistic despite the blatantly miserable conditions. This is much better than just having an annoying character as captain who is difficult to sympathize with. The other characters, like the doctor, Francis and James have been well-defined so far and I'm interested to learn some more about them as the show goes on. Thankfully, the acting from all characters has been excellent so far, and with high-tier actors working the show like Ciaran Hinds, Jared Harris and Tobias Menzies, I suspect that the acting will remain a consistent high point of the show. I did like the little bit of characterization that the character who went to cover David's body (forgot his name, oops) got. We don't know much about him, but he got to demonstrate some morality by not leaving David just out in the open like that. I also like the characterization of the doctor, who tried to show some heart for David, before doing his job and cutting him open, and also of Francis, who clearly has experienced something traumatic in the past. Like a lot of other successful pilots, this show does a great job of setting up a lot of questions as it gets started. I'm very intrigued to find out what happens in the show and I want to see more, which means that the episode definitely did its job. The Bad: The biggest problem with this episode however is that it is VERY slow. It's risky to have such a methodically paced pilot because it has a chance of alienating viewers very quickly. When I look at this episode as an overall package, very little actually happens and that makes it rather tough to get involved in the show early on, despite the intrigue it raises. I'm curious, but I can't call it good television yet. I feel that the episode took too long to get to the big moment of the ships getting trapped in the ice and that the episode may have been more gripping if that had happened a little earlier on. Anybody who has seen any horror will know that David will return in some form. The loose coffin lid felt like an easy way to bring him back without any complications. I'm fine if they want to bring him back as a twist, but I wish it wasn't so easy to spot that detail. The Unknown: What sickness hit David? What did it do to him and how did it kill him? How did he get it and how does it spread? Do other crew members have it now? How would they be able to know if they have it? Who was the person David imagined? Were they just a hallucination or were they actually there in some form? Are they connected to the sickness? What did David mean when he said "he wants us to run"? Did he mean run from the man, or is the man trying to help them? What was the dog barking at? Is there something that the dog noticed that the humans didn't? Is David going to return in some form? Best Moment: While the moment didn't really impact the story much, I really enjoyed the crew member's descent into the water. It was a fantastic horror scene which put us in an uncomfortable situation where we didn't know what awaited us under the water. The arrival of the dead body was very good and appropriately scary. Character of the Episode: Franklin. Conclusion: This was a solid pilot episode, but it was very slow and I don't feel that enough happened to really engage us into the story. Of course I do expect things to get better once the horror aspect actually kicks in, so this episode is far from problematic. It's just completely unspectacular and feels too focused on set-up. Score: 60
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
February 2024
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