Review by C.J. Bunce
Even after reading several of the late Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan novels, nothing quite compares to the movie adaptation of The Hunt for Red October. People don’t regularly think of it as science fiction but it’s exactly that–the tale of a futuristic nuclear submarine that has a silent propulsion system that makes it easy to sneak up and destroy any enemy. BBC’s spy-fi meets police procedural series Vigil is returning this year for its third season. It’s a Scotland-based series unlike any Scottish mystery show you’ve watched, and its first season is the best effort yet to adapt the kind of Tom Clancy military and political suspense thriller that nobody has succeeded at delivering since The Hunt for Red October. Let’s get caught up on the brilliant spy-fi mystery Vigil. Its first season blends the Tom Clancy military thriller tropes with the suspense of current international dangers and Cold War scares reminiscent of The China Syndrome and The Bedford Incident that still haunt the planet, with a dose of that creativity in survival situations found in Ron Howard’s Apollo 13.
Suranne Jones (Coronation Street, Doctor Who) stars as Detective Chief Inspector Amy Silva, a Scotland police officer called to investigate a death aboard the ballistic missile submarine nuclear HMS Vigil. She agrees to be airlifted to the sub with the understanding that she has three days to preserve evidence and investigate the death on the ship, but once there that shifts to potentially a three-week tour. Silva’s co-worker and former girlfriend Detective Sergeant Kirsten Longacre (Luther and Case Histories’ Rose Leslie) is running a parallel investigation of the death of a drifter who was dating the dead sailor and trying to alert authorities to events that sound a lot to everyone like the stuff of conspiracy theories.
Onboard the submarine, the Captain, played by Paterson Joseph (Aeon Flux, Case Histories), cannot be bothered with a civilian investigation, as previous problems with his crew have put the ship in the spotlight just as Scotland’s parliament is considering shelving the Scotland nuclear deterrent program. But the Captain is respectful and defers as much as a military type could do to allow DCI Silva to do her work. His XO, played by Adam James, does not harness his disdain for Silva, and has ongoing confrontations with her. To the show’s credit, the Navy crew doesn’t make this about sex discrimination–they just doesn’t have time to add that to the extensive mix of political machinations threaded into the plot. The centerpiece of the conflict is military vs civilians in general. DCI Silva is a detective asking the right questions, treating the death like any other inquiry back on land. Suranne Jones plays it perfectly.
Silva is tough, but she has her own baggage. She has PTSD from a car wreck she caused that put her in the water with her fiance and his daughter, leaving her to choose which to save. She chose the daughter. In the aftermath, custody of the girl went to her grandparents, leaving Silva lost. In the next year she became closer with DS Longacre, but they split up before the events of the series. Silva is on medication for her anxiety, but she fails to disclose this to the ship medic, a violation of the Navy’s rules. This harms her progress later on. Strict limitations on communications to and from the vessel–necessities required for the Captain to keep the sub’s location secret to nearby ships–make this even more of a nailbiter.
Shaun Evans (Ashes to Ashes) plays the coxswain, Elliot Glover, assigned to assist Silva on the boat. Every officer and crewman on the Vigil seems to be savvy and by-the-book as it relates to running the submarine, yet they also each have their own secret that may or may not relate to the death of the sailor. The dead sailor is chief petty officer Craig Burke, played by Martin Compston (Traces). We see him only because he recorded some video messages of the whistleblower variety. His girlfriend back home is played by Karen Pirie star Lauren Lyle. She claims she’s being watched by MI5 agents.
Other key players include The Red King star Anjli Mohindra as medical officer Docherty, Connor Swindells (Barbie, Scoop) as engineering officer Hadlow, Lois Chimimba (Shetland, The One, Doctor Who) as a sonar specialist, Bobby Rainsbury (Dept. Q) and Daniel Portman (Game of Thrones) as other sailors, and recurring actors include Gary Lewis as Silva and Longacre’s boss and Orla Russell as Poppy, Silva’s estranged, would-be stepdaughter, a good young actress who will get a larger role later on.
That same sci-fi element that makes the vessels in The Hunt for Red October mega-sized submarines also makes Vigil’s corridors larger than the typical sub, so when it doesn’t seem so cramped it’s believable. This is an element you’re going to need to overlook in any effort to get a TV series produced–for storytelling purposes someone needs to recreate a ship that can be filmed, allowing the kind of murders and other drama necessary for a full-fledged detective story. On my first viewing I was so immersed in the narrative that it never even occurred to me that some of the elements might not jibe with the real-world Scotland Navy. But the fact the show is a Scotland Navy story means U.S. audiences just don’t know enough of the specifics to nitpick details that may be off. The average Brit probably won’t know all that either. Would any of us know if Tom Clancy fudged some details in his books? Probably not. But like Louis L’Amour or any other prolific research-based writer, it’s writers that deliver a compelling story using just enough requisite details that draw us in. Any detail they got wrong in Vigil can be overlooked, because the story is so well-delivered.
The intrigue is as good as you’ve ever seen on British television. In fact Vigil may be the best British spy-fi series yet. The elements of The Hunt for Red October are mirrored in a way that is entirely different from the movie, yet all the same intrigue, breathless danger, and high stakes keep the series’ six episodes a polished, well-edited, almost cinema-worthy experience. Any Tom Clancy fan will be pleasantly surprised to have a TV series worthy of the genre, and one that bests the Clancy adaptation efforts that have been pursued after his death. As the body count rises, so do some familiar Clancy elements: multiple attempts at sabotage by an unlikely culprit, a kidnapping, an eleventh-hour rescue by a savvy sonar expert, heroic sailor efforts, a covert Russian Navy pursuing the sub, and even Americans as the bad guys. Do Americans even know Scotland has a Navy and nuclear submarines? Vigil is a good showcase of Scotland as something more than a group of islands way up north, which is in sharp contrast to the kinds of local, rural murder cases found on the popular series Shetland. The series makes Scotland look like a significant world power militarily.
It has everything but the late Scottish actor Sean Connery uttering “one ping only, please.” The result is a first season that propels Vigil toward the top of our Best of British television list.
Catch up with our reviews of other quality British TV series (including Australian and New Zealand shows you’d find on PBS, BritBox, or Acorn TV) beginning with our Top 10: Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes, Zen, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, Mr. Selfridge, Guilt, The IPCRESS File, The Hour, The Gentlemen, Black Doves, and Shetland. You could stay pretty busy with our full list of top British TV recommendations, including The Artful Dodger, Vigil (can it keep its spot here after its second and third seasons?), Van Der Valk, the first season of Sherlock, Deadloch, Troppo, Case Histories, This is Going to Hurt, Black Snow, Mystery Road: Origin, Death Valley, Dept. Q, Bodkin, The Bletchley Circle, Good Cop/Bad Cop, Grace, Hinterland, Glitch, Mystery Road, Culprits, Harrow, Annika, The Day of the Jackal, Code of Silence, Luther, Professor T, and Supacell. After you’ve seen all of those, try Viva Blackpool, Marchlands, Lightfields, State of Play, I, Jack Wright, Population 11, Protection, After the Flood, Traces, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Ordeal by Innocence, Unforgotten, The Bay, Wild Bill, Quirke, Requiem, The Gloaming, The Clearing, The One, The Tourist, The Tower, Collateral, Roadkill, Stay Close, The Salisbury Poisonings, and A Confession.
Other British series across genres that are worth checking out (a few still to be reviewed here) include fun romps like Monarch of the Glen, Para Handy, Cranford, Viva Blackpool, and As Time Goes By, and cozy mysteries Rosemary and Thyme, Father Brown, Hetty Wainthropp, and Death in Paradise. One of the best of all British productions is the reboot of All Creatures Great and Small, which is in our British Top 10 (and the original is good, too). Of course there’s always Doctor Who for your sci-fi fix (and spin-offs Torchwood and Class), The Watch for your fantasy fix, Truth Seekers and Sea of Souls for your supernatural fix, and Spaced for more sci-fi fun, and we really should add House, MD, for Brit lead Hugh Laurie’s one-of-a-kind performance. (We’ve also reviewed but don’t heartily recommend so much Dublin Murders, The ABC Murders, The Pale Horse, Reef Break, The One That Got Away, The Silence, The Five, The Missing, Thirteen, or Broadchurch, as well as No Offence, which could have merited a review for its first season but, like Sherlock, its later episodes were a disappointment).
Keep coming back to borg, your source for the best of British TV, including reviews of Season 2 of Vigil and the upcoming third season. Seasons 1 and 2 are streaming now on Peacock, with Season 3 not yet scheduled.
