I thought it was very atmospheric, and left me that night and the next day thinking just about that cold, and miserable chill, the wind howling across the Arctic in the middle of winter. The tension and momentum of dread builds up over the two episodes, and you can see how this all plays out towards the end, bleak, gruesome, and desperate.
I liked the flashbacks to different lives in London, just enough to contrast, and go back to the increasingly dire circumstances they find themselves in. Parts of it reminded me of Ravenous (1999) for some reason.
The combination of English pride and duty to country and all that, as you watch things slowly spiral out of control will be brutal.
The set design, setting, costumes, are all very well done, as a kid I was fascinated with that era, pirates and such, so I appreciated a show that portrays the conditions realistically. This is a great TV season, for dark haunting dramas, between this and The Americans returning.