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. Its first season blended 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.
Check out the first look below of the third season of Vigil, which takes the series leads from the Cold War wartime vibe to just plain cold.
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.
Just as the first season propeled Vigil toward the top of our Best of British television list, the second dragged some. It’s about drone technology–drones that can arm themselves and do their own killing, so it very well may play better today in light of recent wartime events.
Here is BBC’s first look at Season 3 of Vigil:
Season 3 of Vigil doesn’t have a locked-in release date yet, but it’s expected in both the UK and the U.S. in late 2026.
C.J. Bunce / Editor / borg
