The Last Place on Earth is a 1985 British miniseries which ran for seven episodes.
It tells the story of the race to be the first humans to reach the South Pole. The time is the early years of the 20th century, and the story follows two different explorers from two different countries.
Robert Falcon Scott
is a captain in the Royal Navy who has been fixated on the Antarctic since the turn of the century. Scott (Martin Shaw) had previously led an expedition which came within 530 miles of the Pole but nearly led to the deaths of Scott and his companions Ernest Shackleton and Edward Wilson. Outside of his polar ambitions, Scott's career isn't going particularly well, as he has lost command of a battleship after a collision. Meanwhile Shackleton, now Scott's bitter rival, launches another Antarctic expedition of his own but was forced to turn back after setting a record for "Furthest South". The Pole remains to be conquered, and Scott is determined to be first.
At the same time, Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian explorer, has ambitions to go to the North Pole. He is unpleasantly surprised when news breaks that an American explorer, Frederick Cook, has won the race to the North Pole. Eventually, Cook's claim would be judged a fraud, but at first he was believed, including by Amundsen, who was shocked. With the North Pole already claimed, Amundsen decides to take off for the South Pole instead.
The result was that two rival expeditions set off for the South Pole at almost exactly the same time. One ended in triumph and glory; the other ended in complete disaster.
Max von Sydow has a small part as Fridtjof Nansen, a Norwegian and sort of the dean of polar explorers. Brian Dennehy has two scenes as Frederick Cook. Sylvester McCoy, soon to become the seventh Doctor Who, plays Bowers, a member of Scott's doomed polar party. Pat Roach, the guy who got chewed up by an airplane propeller in Raiders of the Lost Ark, is P.O. Evans, who also died on Scott's polar party. Bill Nighy and Hugh Grant, both future stars, appear as Cecil Meares and Apsley Cherry-Garrard respectively.
To see a considerably more positive portrayal of Robert Falcon Scott, see the 1924 documentary The Great White Silence, filmed by Herbert Ponting, a member of the expedition. (One scene in this series shows Ponting filming Scott and the men at base camp.)
Tropes:
- Agony of the Feet: Frostbite of the feet is a major problem in the Antarctic wilderness, starting in Episode 4 when one of the Norwegians' toes have frozen. It becomes a factor in the deaths of Scott's party, when frostbite renders them unable to walk.
- Artistic License – History: The series presents Bowers, Wilson, and Scott sitting up together, dead, when they are found. In fact they were found in their sleeping bags, with Scott half out of his and with an arm around Wilson.
- Amundsen was Cook's friend in real life, and even got into some trouble with the American press for publicly supporting him against Robert Peary's claim, and he always publicly acknowledged Peary and later Byrd being before him. (Ironically now both Peary and Cook are thought to have, deliberately or otherwise, been mistaken and not reached the North Pole. Byrd's flight is also considered highly suspect at best, as his flight time wasn't long enough to reach it. If all three were off target, that leaves the first to the North Pole by any method an airship expedition lead by...Roald Amundsen.)
- A Birthday, Not a Break:
- As the British struggle over Beardmore Glacier on December 12, 1911, Oates muses that Bill Lashly is turning 44 that day. (A little bit of Artistic License – History, since Lashly was actually born on Dec. 25, 1867.)
- And then, right before he crawls out of the tent to die, Oates notes correctly that it's his birthday.
- Bold Explorer: Lots! Attempting to reach the South Pole on foot requires boldness! The problem is that Robert Scott is too bold, bold to the point of recklessness. Amundsen is bold but also plans very carefully.
- Boring Return Journey: Both averted and played straight. Amundsen's return journey is not shown at all, because it was incident-free; after leaving the pole his men are shown back on the shore with the rest of the expedition, packing up. Scott's return journey however is shown in detail, as it became a death march in which all five members of his party succumbed to starvation and scurvy.
- Broken Tears: Scott, when the British find the Norwegians' tent and realize that they have been beaten to the South Pole.
- Burning the Ships: The first episode ends with Roald Amundsen springing a surprise on his brother Leon: he will head for the South Pole instead of the North. When a shocked Leon points out that the parliament voted them funds specifically for a North Pole expedition, Roald calmly replies that he isn't going to tell anybody until after they've left. An excited but still nervous Leon says they could go to prison for misappropriation of government funds, to which Roald answers that no one will care if they win the race.
- The Cameo: Brian Dennehy in two scenes as Frederick Cook.
- Chekhov's Skill: Amundsen's time spent with the Inuit was instrumental in him gaining the victory.
- The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much: Dr. Atkinson, and the authorities back in England, deliberately cover up the fact that the corpses of Scott, Wilson, and Bowers showed obvious signs of scurvy, in order to avoid awkward questions about Scott's organization of food and supplies. Instead their cause of death is written off to "exposure".(Amundsen's men were perfectly healthy.)
- Danger — Thin Ice: In episode 3 one of the motor sledges is lost when it goes straight through the ice. This causes a chaotic little scene where a couple of men fall through the ice as well, but they are saved.
- Downer Beginning: Opens with Scott getting a humiliating lecture from an admiral about how Scott's battleship suffered a collision at sea and how he, Scott, will never command a battleship again and how he's lucky he wasn't court-martialed. The point is made that Antarctic exploration is all Scott has left.
- Downer Ending: Scott and all his party die. His wife is left a widow. Amundsen makes it back alive and as the conqueror of the Pole, but still overshadowed by Scott, who becomes a martyr. Amundsen is also held in disapproval by Nansen and the government of Norway for tricking them all and going to the South Pole instead of the North.
- Dramatic Irony: There are multiple Voiceover Letters from Nansen to Amundsen in which Nansen offers his help for a North Pole expedition. He even says "It's important for we Norwegians to be seen cooperating with the British." While this is happening Amundsen is in the final stages of preparation for his secret journey to the South Pole in direct competition with Scott and the British.
- Emergency Food Supply Animal: Simply part of the exploration of Antarctica. Amundsen can only carry so much dog food and people food, as his dogsled teams race to the Pole, so when the time comes, they start shooting and eating the dogs. This is also a case of Truth in Television, as Amundsen had planned on killing off the weaker dogs for their meat. Fresh meat is instrumental in fighting off scurvy.
- Epic Tracking Shot: Episode 2 starts outside the office of the British Antarctic Expedition. The camera then goes through the hallway without a cut, swoops past the table where volunteers are being screened, goes up a flight of stairs, glides into an office where team members are debating the design of their sleds, then snakes through another office and down a hallway until it finds Scott's office.
- Fatal Flaw: Scott, with his top-down, Royal Navy command style, which makes him unwilling to listen to or accept advice.
- He's not interested in using skis, so Elizabeth has to result to a Glad I Thought of It strategy to get him to change his mind.
- Meares states plainly that he has no experience with or knowledge of horses, but Scott sends him to Siberia anyway to get them, rather than pay for Oates, who knows horses, to go too. The result is that the ponies acquired for the expedition are sick or weak and collectively are a bunch of unfit nags.
- Scott overrules Oates and insists on retaining P.O. Evans, who's an unreliable screw-up. This helps lead to disaster.
- Scott leaves his sled engineer, Skelton, back in England, because he has absorbed Lt. Evans's expedition and made him second in command, and Evans refuses to work with an underling officer who outranks him (in the Navy). None of the sleds last more than a week on the trail.
- Scott overrules both Meares and Oates, who think the ponies should be used until they die, and elects to send them back because he can't stand "cruelty to animals". The ponies die anyway and Scott's decision to send them back leads to the supply depot being too far north, with fatal consequences.
- Fight to Survive: A rare example of a Fight to Survive that fails. Scott and his companions, victimized by Scott's poor decision-making and vague orders, and plagued by frostbite, starvation, and scurvy, die on their way back from the Pole.
- Glad I Thought of It: Elizabeth Scott figures out that the only way to get her husband to listen to her advice is to make him think that it was his idea. So since Scott was dismissive of the use of skis, Elizabeth, with help from Nansen, arranges for him to see how fast Gran the Norwegian ski guy is, and for Scott to take Gran along as ski instructor. When he finally picks up on her hints and decides to hire Gran, she says "What a good idea, my clever, clever man," without a hint of irony.
- Going Native: We are introduced to Roald Amundsen as he and several of his men share an igloo with several Inuit.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Oates, who can't walk any longer, goes crawling out into the snow to die in the hopes that the other three will be able to travel quicker without him. Surprisingly, the series does not use the famous line attributed to Oates in Scott's diary—"I am just going outside and it may be some time."
- Historical Domain Character: Almost all of them.
- If My Calculations Are Correct: "By my calculations, we'll need a minimum of two tons of provisions out on the barrier, to make it to the Pole and back." So says Amundsen in episode 3 as he drives home to his men the importance of laying out supplies for the polar party to use as they march.
- Insistent Terminology: The members of the British expedition don't like to admit that they're in a race. Lt. Evans complains that Scott is wasting men and resources on the "Western expedition"—a scientific side trip, more or less. Atkinson says that they shouldn't have to "race" for the Pole but they should act like a scientific expedition. Lt. Evans shoots back "I didn't say we should race, Atch, I said we should ensure we get there before the Norwegians."
- Intro Dump: In Episode 1 Nansen introduces his carpenter, Stuberrud, to other members of the polar party, in order to get their names across to the viewers.
- It's All About Me: All of the members of the British expedition, not just Scott, are highly offended that Amundsen has also shown up in the Antarctic and turned their expedition to the South Pole into a race.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Kathleen Scott is a downplayed version of this—fiery, sexually liberated, independent, likes to swim in the nude—and her husband Robert specifically compliments her on it, and notes that he wishes he wasn't too grumpy to be like her. She is a great traveller (for an Edwardian woman), artist, and party girl; wishes she could go with Robert, and tells him in effect, "Be a badass and give me a badass son as well."
- The film leaves out an even wilder theory put forth by Huntford's book on which the film's partially based: he maintains that while the expedition was in progress, Kathleen conducted an affair on a trip to Europe...with Fridtjof Nansen. If true, it suggests she thought if one badass explorer fell through, she could always try for another son with another badass....
- Mass "Oh, Crap!": Scott and his party when they reach the South Pole nearly a month after Amundsen.
- Meaningful Name: The Butcher's Shop, where Amundsen ordered the weaker dogs to be killed for their meat (which helped in fighting off scurvy).
- Men Act, Women Are: Mrs. Scott says this trope nearly word-for-word, when expressing her frustration at how she would like to go with her husband on the expedition, but can't, because she's a woman.Elizabeth: Men do. Women don't.
- Naïve Animal Lover: A rare example in which it's not the animals themselves doing the harming. Scott gets squeamish about the suffering ponies (they aren't doing well in the cold, and one is torn apart by the dogs) and elects to send them back. The ponies wind up dying anyway, and sending them back instead of working them to death on the march south results in the supply depot being too far north, with disastrous consequences. (Oates, who thinks little of Scott and his decision-making, specifically points this out when things are getting grim in the last episode.)
- Oh, Crap!:
- Captain Scott, when upon hearing Amundsen's message to him: Beg leave to inform you. Proceeding Antarctic. note
- Roald Amundsen, upon hearing of Scott's death, along with the rest of his party.
- Repeat Cut: Amundsen's men call out to him. There's a Repeat Cut of Amundsen, in the lead, turning back to look at them. Then they call out "First man to the Pole!".
- The Rival:
- Ernest Shackleton for Scott. Scott is angry that Shackleton is trying to beat him to the South Pole and enraged when he finds out that Shackleton is using his old base camp. Shackleton for his part holds Scott in contempt and blames him for their prior expedition being a near disaster.
- Then Amundsen and Scott for each other, although Scott doesn't find this out until Amundsen has gone to see and he gets Amundsen's telegram in episode 3. Scott is not happy at all when he finds out.
- Skinnydipping: Kathleen shows what an unusually liberated woman she is for the Edwardian Era when she swims nude in the ocean while on vacation with Scott.
- Take This Job and Shove It: Meares is so disgusted with Scott and his leadership style that when it's time to return to base with the dogs, he tells Scott straight up that he's quitting the expedition and not coming back. This is just one more of the many reasons why Scott and the polar party meet their doom, as Meares, the veteran dogsled driver, is not around to lead the dogs on the relief expedition.
- Upper-Class Twit: The series occasionally shades Scott into this. Ironically, the author of the book this was based on pointed out Scott's lack of class (he was an upper middle-class officer living and supporting much of his family on his pay; getting the Discovery mission was a result of impressing Patrons like Markham) as one of his problems. He had to pay attention to what the Royal Geographical Society thought, and was very uncomfortable dealing with Meares and Oates. Both quite higher-class than he if lower ranked, and both technically much more knowledgeable about handling animals.
- Voiceover Letter:
- A voiceover letter from Scott to his wife Kathleen narrates how Scott is nervous about the performance of his motorized sledges, and nervous about an upcoming meeting with Lord De Walden, his rich patron.
- Several from Nansen to Amundsen as the former complains about the latter shutting him out of the expedition (the reason being that Amundsen has secretly changed destinations from North to South Pole).
- The last two episodes have numerous voiceovers from Scott's famous diary, as well as an audio montage of voiceover letters that he wrote to different people, including his wife, once it was clear they were going to die.
- Walk and Talk: In the first episode Scott and Dr. Wilson walk across some hill somewhere as they talk about what to do concerning Ernest Shackleton, now a rival of Scott's who is preparing to make an expedition of his own soon.
