Acorn Media, out now

A Japanese-American family face horror in an internment camp after Pearl Harbor…

The first season of The Terror drew from Dan Simmons’ book to present a taut and horrific take on a true-life tragedy; the sequel has the same idea, but this time, it’s the horrific treatment meted out to the Japanese-American families in the aftermath of the outbreak of the Second World War in December 1941. We have had plenty of movies that have looked at the Westerners’ experience of camps run by the Japanese – Bridge over the River Kwai and its like – but this side of the American Dream has, like so many parts of the country’s history, been overlooked, and it won’t surprise me if the underpinning of this season feels like total fiction to British audiences.

You can read Nick Joy’s reviews of the individual episodes here but coming to this as one entity rather than on a weekly release, the overall impression is of a series that’s conflicted at its conceptual heart – is the Terror that it’s referring to the way in which those inside the camp are treated by their captors, as the first few episodes suggest, or is it the spirit whose apparently malevolent influence becomes increasingly relevant as the series progresses? It tries to service both, and doesn’t always pull it off. There’s some strong performances, notably from Torchwood’s Naoko Mori, and George Takei is powerful when on screen (which isn’t as much as you might hope) – his interview here with the world’s press at the show’s launching in 2019 makes coruscating reading.

The home media edition is not blessed with extras: two four-minute EPK pieces is it (and there’s an item on the packaging that I’ve not seen mentioned as an extra for a very long time!). This is something of a missed opportunity, as the chance to educate beyond the confines of the TV series should have been taken.

Verdict: The horror element hits familiar notes but the historical truth merits the spotlight. 7/10

Paul Simpson

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