#I definitely haven't seen a cult following like this for something like The Corps

[queenoftheimps]

One thing I find interesting about The Terror's cult following is that, on the face of it, the audience that is attached to the show is not at all what I imagine people assumed when it was released.

Like, this a show specifically about history and the military/the navy, with a cast that is 95% white guys. Even with the horror elements, I kind of imagine AMC executives might've thought it would do well with the 'Dad' audience, or people who like stuff like Band of Brothers. (Tobias Menzies' latest show, Manhunt, is in this category, and I don't think it's entirely coincidental that he & Ciarán Hinds were also big main characters on HBO's Rome, something that also fits this niche.)

And instead, it seems like it was mainly embraced by a younger audience (something Jared Harris himself noticed), specifically one that's probably a lot more queer/non-masculine than might have been expected.

I'm sure there are people out there with much more astute analysis than me on why that is, but I wonder if a lot of it is simply down to tone. This isn't a show about the glory of the military or a patriotic mission, or even about men being noble/tough in the face of an ultimately tragic ending.

It's about how all that shit falls apart when it comes to push comes to shove, and how sometimes things that are framed as glorious are actually a pointless fucking tragedy on behalf of an empire that kept chugging right along without them. And the only thing to show for it is the bonds these people formed before they died.