A third season of AMC’s The Terror is on its way
It gets better: Karyn Kusama will direct at least two episodes of The Terror: Devil In Silver
TV News The Terror
You thought you’d seen the end of The Terror after season two in 2019, but AMC is here to surprise everyone with a renewal. At the 2024 Television Critics Association’s (TCA) winter press tour, the cable network announced it has given the green light for the supernatural drama’s third season.
To refresh your memory: The horror anthology initially premiered in 2017 with a terrific debut season helmed by David Kajganich and Pachinko’s Soo Hugh. Set in the mid-1800s, it told a fictionalized, hella creepy account of Captain Sir John Franklin’s (Ciarán Hinds) lost expedition to the Arctic and co-starred Jared Harris, Tobias Menzies, and Nive Nielsen. Season two, dubbed Infamy, arrived a couple of years later and was developed by Alexander Woo and Max Borenstein. It took place in an American-run Japanese internment camp during World War II, and featured Derek Mio, Kiki Sukezane, and George Takei.
Since the sophomore season of this prestige series wasn’t as acclaimed as the first, The Terror was in limbo; that is, until now. AMC confirmed at its TCA panel that the show’s third season is being written by Halt And Catch Fire’s Chris Cantwell along with The Changeling author Victor LaValle. In even better news, Karyn Kusama is a producer and will direct at least two episodes. Based on the show’s description, no one is better equipped to handle it.
Season three is called Devil In Silver. It’s about a working-class man named Pepper who, through bad luck and a bad temper, finds himself at the New Hyde Psychiatric Hospital; an institution filled with the people society would rather forget. He has to navigate the, ahem, terrors there in the form of fellow patients, doctors, and possibly the Devil himself. Cantwell said it takes on questions like “What does victory look like in a world of broken systems and preyed upon people? What kind of hero is needed?”
In this case, the hero is AMC for giving us another round of The Terror. The six-episode season is expected to premiere in 2025.
39 Comments
The first season of The Terror was great. And Halt and Catch Fire is one of my all time fave shows, so I’m super interested in this third season.
Halt and Catch fire was such a great and underrated show. I did a free month of AMC+ last year and rewatched the whole thing. It really holds up well (I hadn’t watched it since it was originally on). Plus I can’t think of another show where the fourth (especially the fourth and final) season is the best.
Agreed. Yeah, they really turned it around after the first season, which wasn’t terrible but wasn’t that good. Those last three seasons are some of the best in all of TV. That Gordon episode in season four… I wish more people saw this show but, like my other all time fave You’re The Worst, I’m super thankful that the networks stuck with them despite the ratings struggle and allowed their stories to be told.
It always makes me laugh towards the end of the first season, when Jared Harris’ character is addressing the traitor who just gave him his big “this is how I infiltrated” speech, he just tiredly says “you know, you could have just SIGNED UP for the Navy…”
That first season was one of my favorite seasons of TV to come out in 20 years. I couldn’t make it through the second, though I really wanted to.
The second season was a massive disappointment which is a shame because given the time setting and subject matter, there was potential for a great and thought provoking TV series. But it utterly failed in just about every way. I stuck with it because I’m one of those viewers that once I start something, I have to finish it, so I was essentially hate watching by the end.
You and Bam are spot on in my mind. S1 was so great, I would put it up there with True Detective S1 for best seasons in recent history.And even though it wasn’t good, I also had to finish S2 once I started it like you. Honestly, I don’t remember too much about it but I do remember there was one episode toward the end of the season that was actually good. Of course that could be graded on a curve, but it just made it all the more frustrating to me that it apparently had some potential.
Aside from Black Mirror (a show I think is more uneven than most people acknowledge), I can’t think of many creatively successful anthology shows. Most of the time the show is so different season to season or episode to episode that any connective tissue is flimsy at best. The creators have to reargue their reason for existing every time they reset. I cannot fathom how that’s a financial win. And certainly the marketers loathe having to pretend there’s a legit throughline. Season 1 of The Terror was fantastic. Season 2 was less successful. I have to wonder if it would have thrived ha it been cut free of its predecessor and presented as a standalone.
As much as I appreciate Black Mirror, I think Fargo may be my favorite Anthology series.
YES. Cannot believe I left that out. That is easily a much more consistent anthology. Fargo certainly benefits from a single creator.
It certainly helps that he gives himself plenty of time before churning out another season. Too many show used to prioritize content over creativity.
The Terror is a really weird case because the first season was based on the book of the same name and then the second I don’t think was adapted from anything. I don’t think any of the creatives carried over either. It’s really an in name only anthology so far.
This is all true, but there’s a difference in an anthology show like Black Mirror that is an episodic anthology like The Twilight Zone, and some of the other shows that are being cited that are season long anthologies.The episodic ones sometimes have trouble connecting overall, but they can also shrug off a bad episode if they are generally supberb. But a season long anthology can have a harder, almost impossible job of bouncing back if a season tanks hard.
The article doesn’t say, but is this based on the book The Terror by Dan Simmons?
The first season was. And made the smart decision of putting Jared Harris in the lead.
It is. Although theres a few changes so its not exactly the same story.
The first season was, yes.
came here wondering the same thing
Same. That’s the bitch of anthology series, especially if one season is just goddamned superb.
The second was a huge disappointment compared to the first. Complete was of George Takei, even though it accurately represented the horrors of Japanese internment camps.There were a couple of scary moments (that lady crawling out of the bag in a Ring-like fashion), but for the most part it was a big misfire. I am looking forward to a mental asylum in the third season, though, it sounds like it has a lot of potential.
Why? The second was pretty awful.
They adapted the full book in one amazing season and then got greedy. Maybe I would’ve liked more the season two if it focused more on the isolation/wilderness/survival/relationships of the first one, because even in the first season the supernatural aspects were the weakest ones.
This third season concept sounds again as an american horror story/channel zero/generic antology horror series this show should have never become.
Get over yourself, loser.
Well, damn. The Devil in Silver is a great book, and Victor LaValle is a fine writer. So maybe it will work. I didn’t have the chance to see the second season (and didn’t seek it out because of some tepid reviews) but the first was pretty damn good
So the description doesn’t really say much. Is this story set in modern times or in olden times?
I’m so excited I’m going to go get 30 Lashes as a Boy.
In keeping with the series’ goal of mixing history with horror, they should adapt Alma Katsu’s “The Hunger.”
That would be a great book to adapt!
This book was so cruddy compared to the Terror, and much less scary than just actually researching the Donner Party.
Season 1 was beyond amazing and I wish more people saw it. Season 2 was an embarrassing come down. This season, I don’t know that premise doesn’t sound exactly original it sounds a little American Horror Story Asylum. But six episodes is probably a good idea, season 2 dragged so goddamn hard.
“This season, I don’t know that premise doesn’t sound exactly original it sounds a little American Horror Story Asylum.”
Well, hopefully the writer of the critically acclaimed, award-winning book that it’s based on doesn’t have a pale, lifeless imagination like you do.
I keep thinking that True Detective: Night Country would have been better titled The Terror: Night Country. It’s really just the chilly vibes.
Cornelius Hickey : A man called Cornelius Hickey told me this expedition was a year in the Polar Sea and then out the other side. He told me the ship’s plan to stop at the Sandwich Islands and the crew was going to dry out in the sun. “That’s the other side of the world,” I thought. “A year’s nothing.” So I dabbed him, left him in Regent’s Canal, and here I am instead.Francis Crozier : You could have just joined up.
Does anyone know the reason why they’re not adapting Dan Simmon’s other adventurers-stalked-by-monster-in-frozen-wasteland book, The Abominable? I confess I haven’t read that one, but it seems like such a no-brainer after the second season faltered, I wonder why they’re not going to that well. Do they just not have the rights?
“Based on the show’s description, no one is better equipped to handle it.”
Um, are you going to tell us why you believe that?
The Ter3or
It’s so strange to me that this show has taken the name of the novel it adapted in the first season, the title coming from an element of that particular story, and turned it into the overall title of an anthology show that has nothing to do with the original story or other works by the original author.
Hopefully this is better than the second season, which was a massive let-down after the brilliant first season. Not completely terrible, but it’s telling that the by-far best episode of the second season (“Taizo”) is the one where none of the main living characters has much screen-time.
Having just read the novel The Terror, CAN CONFIRM the amazing fact that an excellent novel can lead to an excellent season of TV.Strikes me that then trying to retrofit a similar story with the same elements from no source material can potentially lead to a cruddy season of TV.