Vigil (2021– ) User Reviews

It's a drama not a documentary

[clairedoobie · 8/10 · 30 August 2021]

I mean, if you want to know about life on a nuclear submarine watch a documentary. This is a drama and a gripping one, well acted IMHO.

As for the review which hinted at the BBC anti-nuclear stance (after watching just the first episode), we were trying to remember what gave that impression. It must've been the mildly questioning comment a character made, wondering what is the point of nuclear weapons. So. The Beeb is anti-nuclear because of a line uttered by a chapter in a fictional drama? Really? NB It might be worth remembering quite a few ex-services people have also questioned whether nuclear weapons are anything other than a political tool. 'Trident- what the bloody hell is it for' - Field Marshall Lord Carver.

Most of us have no idea how accurate the drama as to the actual inside of a submarine, and it matters little to the actual plot.

A drama not a documentary

[matlocklane · 8/10 · 6 September 2021]

If you are not a pedant on navy protocol in the event of a suspicious death onboard a nuclear submarine then this series offers sufficient drama, red herrings and emotional content to earn its prime time slots. It's a drama afterall, not a fact finding documentary and the cast play their respective roles very well.

2nd series didn't mesmerize me like the 1st

[cathode-94655 · 7/10 · 21 December 2023]

It was watchable and exciting but not quite as gripping as the 1st series. As a viewer I felt I was watching some last minute adaptations to make the storyline and dialogue more relevant to current events in the Middle East. The series does attempt to explain islamophobia to the viewers but because none of the muslim characters were given any real depth, it sort of failed.

So a brave detective averts a war, and shames the military and security services. I almost started believing that the Police are all a bunch of lovable lefties. Perhaps they are in Scotland.

Quite a complicated plot, a lot of names to remember and we have to pretend to be surprised quite often, like when our hero Suranne runs into danger like all the time, disarms all her assailants, and when she finds footage of drones missing targets, who weren't actually their targets and we'd already seen them missing those targets anyway.

Suranne Jones' performance seemed a little awkward. I watched mainly because I think she's amazing, just not in this. She plays the strong silent type who runs towards explosions, doesn't talk about her feelings, prioritizes work over everything and doesn't give her girlfriend enough attention. Hasn't that theme been done to death by now though? Why do female lead rolls still have to sink into these male moulds? Bit disappointing.

Unusal

[GabrielSymes · 9/10 · 6 September 2021]

So many reviews here, posted after the first episode aired, are heavily criticising the programme because someone wore the wrong sort of hat. What next? Star Trek is awful because space monsters don't live on Mars?

I don't care about the navy, what hats they wear, how they steer submarines around and other finicky details. I do care about entertainment and watching enjoyable shows. I am quite able to suspend disbelief and enjoy all kinds of fiction, including Vigil.

So, three episodes in, this is shaping up to be a very engaging drama. What is particularly impressive is the pacing. It's a show that takes you along with a solid story and great acting.

If you can't get beyond the fact someone has buttoned up their shirt incorrectly then this is not for you. If you are happy to enjoy a fictional drama for what it is, give it a go.

Well, I liked it.....

[ourelbi · 8/10 · 3 August 2022]

I have absolutely no interest in anything navy storyline related usually, and so skipped over this a few times but Suranne is great, so ..... I'm not sure what the other navy-crazed reviewers were hoping for but calm down - it's a TV show, not a documentary on the workings of the navy. Also, how many reviewers need to use the work "woke"? Did people just learn that word? Move on - sit back and enjoy the show! :)

Suspend your disbelief

[Too-Tall-for-the-Desert · 7/10 · 1 September 2021]

I come from Royal Navy heritage and find the way the RN are portrayed quite offensive. The story is utterly implausible and full of real life inaccuracies, but put all that aside and remember that this is a TV drama and not real life and it is actually a gripping show. I could write loads on the flaws (you never, ever call a Coxwain or Petty Officer 'Sir' for example), and I agree with the comments about BBC wokeness, but the actors are good, so I have no issues with their selection. So suspend your disbelief, sit back and enjoy a decent British drama.....

One of 2021's highlights.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 9/10 · 5 October 2021]

This is a thrilling six part series from The BBC, I've seen some hilarious comments about realism, it's very obvious that this is meant to thrill and entertain, not inform.

It's claustrophobic, energetic, gripping and fast paced, one of the best shows The BBC have out out in quite a while.

The acting is first rate, the best of Suranne Jones, Shaun Evans is also fantastic, the whole cast are terrific. Production values are off the scale, it looks incredible.

Part one gives you a massive shock, it doesn't hold back at any point, it's unforgiving and relentless. Part 5 is the peak for me, Part 6.....you'll either love it or hate it.

....Think Line of Duty meets Spyship, a 1980's BBC series, it's a cracking mix of both.

Loved it, 9/10.

Just a late update, I much preferred Series one to Series two, the ship setting added a level of claustrophobia, that the second series badly needed.

Definately fiction, but enjoyable

[mixterau · 7/10 · 13 September 2021]

As an amateur navy buff, there are too many mistakes to mention in regards to the on board submarine sets, & navy protocols & procedures.

However,this is a crime fiction drama, and holds your interest, if you can ignore some of (the very obvious) flaws. The acting is good, despite some poor scripting. The sub plots and back story seems to now hold more interest to me than the main plot. Maybe the ending will surprise?

That said, when was the last time you saw a show, or movie on a submarine?

There could have been much better research done, and more thought put into the sets, and navy procedures and protocols, but at its heart it is a crime drama, not a documentary. I will keep watching, as what else is there to?

Exciting new thriller with great potential

[janithesiriwardana · 8/10 · 30 August 2021]

Firstly, let me make it clear that this is a murder mystery/conspiracy thriller set (partially) on a submarine and NOT a documentary about submarines, the navy, or nuclear missiles. As such there are inevitable inaccuracies and dramatic licenses taken (as they are in every legal drama, medical drama or police procedural). If you didn't like Line of Duty because it wasn't 'realistic' enough perhaps this one is not for you. If, however, you are able to suspend your belief for a few hours you might enjoy what seems to be a well written and superbly acted thriller.

***Mild spoilers***

In the modern way, Vigil opens with not one but two, big dramatic events that propel the plot forward. We are then given a somewhat silly plot contrivance to get DCI Amy Silva (a superb Suranne Jones) onto a Trident class submarine for three days in novel setting for the classic locked room murder mystery. The submarine feels suitably claustrophobic (although not enough for some of the previous reviews) and all the crew appear to be hiding something. Back on Land, DC Kirsten Longacre (Game of Thrones Rose Leslie), a former lover of DCI Silva's, investigates the naval barracks and some nearby anti-nuclear missile protesters.

The first episode had some heavy lifting to do introducing the characters and setting but the twin strands of the plot were intriguing, made even more so by that fact that Longacre was able to send messages to Silva but not the other way around. Aside from the use of a few tropes (tortured detective with a Past, big organisation closing ranks, etc) I found the show thrilling with precise camera work and skilful direction. Suranne Jones really is magnificent and Shaun Evans standouts as one of the few nice guys on the boat. If the show can continue to draw out performances from its excellent cast while keeping the plot afloat (!) then it should be a thrilling ride.

Ridiculous and implausible

[MalcolmHaig · 27 September 2021]

In answer to other comments on here, yes it's drama and as such doesn't need to be 100% accurate, however, this series is so far divorced from reality it must be set in an alternative universe.

The premise of an uncleared civilian running around a ballistic missile submarine is ludicrous in the extreme and the way she talks to the crew, especially the senior officers would have her in the brig or permanently under guard in a very short time. The same with the DS running around Faslane like she owns the place, also talking to senior officers like they are dirt on her shoe.

There are so many mistakes in the series it's impossible to list them all, however, a medical officer not being able to pronounce atropine correctly is laughable and then claiming that there is none on board makes her the stupidest doctor in the Forces. The civilian police officer then informing the sailors about nerve agents is pure comedy gold, as is a Coxswain of a major ship obviously not knowing about them.

The BBC seem to be going out of their way to show the sailors to be absolute morons which is hardly surprising nowadays.

Obviously given the sets, uniforms, procedures, etc. In the series, minimal research was done which is a shame.

If you are capable of completely parking reality and common sense on the back shelf then you may have enjoy this, except for the total overacting of the two female leads.

don't bother with the negative reviews.It's a nice spy-thriller series

[Yiannis-T · 7/10 · 26 September 2021]

Very nice series,keeps you anticipating for the next episode! A real spy thrilles series,most of the action happens into a submarine.it's a serious ,well played and directed new series.

Gripping entertainment

[paul2001sw-1 · 9/10 · 27 September 2021]

Murder on a nuclear submarine is a form of locked room mystery that even Agatha Christie never came up with. The new BBC drama, 'Vigil', was made with the involvement of several of the people involved in 'Line of Duty' (including actor Marin Compston in a small role) and it's been produced with all the slick professionalsim you'd expect, keeping the viewer on the edge of their seat with the aid of a slightly overcooked storyline. Also as with 'Line of Duty', it's told in a compressed, efficient form: six thrilling episodes instead of an overlong epic. My only gripe is there isn't that much of a deeper point to the story: post cold-war, the Russian menace just isn't that compelling as the underlying driver of the plot. But unless you stop and think about it, it's such gripping entertainment that you don't really notice.

High Crimes in Low Places and Confined Spaces

[Lejink · 6/10 · 30 September 2021]

This 6-part BBC drama would have the viewer believe that the American and Russian submarines are forever playing cat and mouse in U. K. waters while our own subs unsurprisingly get to play the cheese in between them. It starts with a death on board the HMS Vigil of Martin Compston's mouthy comms officer which sees lone police officer Suranne Jones assigned to go on board and hunt down the killer. She needs on-shore help too and just as you would, naturally chooses her same-sex ex-lover on whom she's just walked out. But her hinterland doesn't stop there as we learn that she's recently survived a traumatic near-drowning in a car-crash which kills her hunky boy-friend, but in which she saves his cherubic daughter, which serves to bond the two together in a parenthood-by-proxy kind of manner.

Meanwhile, on board the sub there's a Russian-sponsored traitor who'll stop at nothing to sabotage the ship but Jones struggles to achieve any kind of cooperation from the tightly-bound loyalties of the crew from the captain on down. She also has to contend with the weaknesses and jealousies of the sub's suspects as well as a tangled on-board love affair between the ship's doctor and the purser. As she gets closer to the truth, her own life increasingly comes under threat, culminating in a Ripley-like pursuit through the bowels of the stricken ship.

Meanwhile, her aforementioned former lover Rose Leslie, working the case on-shore, suspects a tie-in between the on-board Russian plot to another infiltrating the adjacent peace camp to the submarine's dock, where Compston's peacenik girlfriend lives. He apparently had proof of very embarrassing and incriminating evidence which would discredit the sub's personnel and when the young girl dies suspiciously, Leslie and Jones end up running the same race to save the sub and Britain's international reputation at the same time.

It's all ridiculously implausible of course and isn't believable for a second but rather like Jones herself after she first boards the Vigil, you gradually find your sea-legs as you get drawn into the drama with every episode always seeming to end on a cliffhanger. Poor Jones seems to undergo a traumatic flashback every other minute but with the cooperation of Leslie on-land you can bet they'll nail the Russian spy and save the day for the Navy, MI5 and naturally, this country's relations with America.

The production did achieve a suitably murky, claustrophobic feel for the submarine interiors plus I'm always happy to easily recognise the sites of several exterior shots in my native Glasgow where Leslie was on the beat. I would have thought though that Martin Compston's many fans would have been disappointed with the brevity of his prominently advertised role. Or maybe he got his lines crossed between his far-from-plumb part here and his far larger part doing his duty alongside Vicky McClure and Adrian Dunbar pursuing crooked cops.

As a drama then, I wouldn't say I went absolutely overboard on "Vigil" but it just about kept itself above water even if it wasn't the most sub-stantial drama I'll watch this year.

Season 2 disappointing

[BaronBadger · 3/10 · 18 December 2023]

Really enjoyed season 1 I was looking forward to season 2 however I can't help but feel really disappointed. Not the most gripping of storylines, and was relatively easy to work out early on who the good and the bad guys are. What really got me was the poor acting and some of the scenes. Seem very clunky and amateurish at times, and some of the casting for the characters was somewhat questionable. There are a number of times throughout the second series, where characters are holding guns and the simple kick to the back of the knee season falls to the ground and drop the gun and lose control of the situation. Happened far too often and became unrealistic. I stuck through it, but only just, and at the end felt somewhat deflated.

Mills and Boons and the Royal Navy

[thethreesheps · 10 October 2021]

Oh my goodness where do you begin. To see such good acting talent of Stephen, Rose and Suranne, who each have some good moments in particular Stephen and Rose, was painful, with each trying as hard as possible on a cliche ridden amateur and wasted sloppy script the only way to watch it was to treat it as a soap and count the number of cliches and mistakes. So, so many errors of fact and such disrespect to the Royal Navy and I am Australian! I got conned by a newspaper review that this was a great thriller.

Do not waste your time.

Cool your (sub) jets peeps

[mjolly-46068 · 10/10 · 19 September 2021]

Wow! I can't believe all the negative comments. It's a tv drama not a documentary. I think all the characters have been perfectly cast led by Surrane. It's an easy watch if you don't get bogged down with the minutiae of reality and what really happens on submarines. I am finding it gripping!

Spoiler

I am just bummed my fave actor Martin C isn't in the show long enough!

Gripping first episode

[team_keane · 10/10 · 29 August 2021]

Strong cast and burping first episode. Looking forward to seeing the rest. I can tell it's going to be great.

Great concept but the becomes quite ludicrous along the way

[bdtnq · 6/10 · 15 December 2023]

This review is based on Season 1 as I haven't gotten around to Season 2 yet.

Interesting premise and the tension is well crafted, both onshore and on the submarine. However, as the episodes progress, the plot becomes increasingly tenuous and frankly quite ludicrous. One thing that I found quite unbelievable was the bonhomie among all the various agencies.

The performances are decent. I thought Leslie Jones was very good, remain unconvinced about Suranne Jones as DCI Silva. The others do a reasonable job.

Overall a decent watch as a filler but I wouldn't classify it as great Televison, rather an opportunity missed to have a great show.

Great storytelling

[nancyldraper · 8/10 · 27 September 2021]

An interesting and timely premise that offers suspense paired with national security gamesmanship. Excellent cast, great performance, perfect balance between personal and global storylines. It will take awhile for this BBC series to get to our side of the pond but I encourage folks to watch for it. I give this series an 8 (great) out of 10. {Crime, Espionage, Drama}

A little disappointing

[csm-78119 · 6/10 · 2 October 2021]

This has its moments, with the first episode in particular being a decent start but ultimately it's just too silly for its own good. Even a strong cast can't get it anywhere near the usual quality I'd associate with a Jed Mercurio production.

BBC back to it's best!!!

[MrsMelling-3551080 · 10/10 · 29 August 2021]

Love the premise, the cinematography and so far loving the writing! Finally some decent writing again, so bored of all the rubbish that's being produced at the moment on cable TV. If you want to watch something with good writing and a great cast who can actually act for once get stuck into HMS Vigil. We're only one episode in but I'm already exited about what's to come.

Mediocre efforts from the Beeb

[katherine-britton · 6/10 · 27 September 2021]

Think I might have been watching a different show to all the other reviews! I normally love Suranne Jones in any drama and so I'll start with the relationship side of this series. Whilst her character in Gentleman Jack was utterly engrossing and dominating on screen I found the rather pointless side story here with Rose Leslie just a bit cringe. The Scottish accents of all the cast were so hard to understand I had the sub titles on the whole time. There were elements of the story that didn't tie up and just petered out (unless I wasn't paying enough attention) and the lack of accuracy was laughable. I am not of any military background but my husband has some knowledge and he found the size of the sets ridiculous. He said it just ruined the authenticity of it for him. I had a good chuckle at the arrest and "interview in handcuffs" on a park bench. I'm not a police officer either but I would imagine that's not what happens under arrest. Nope, it was all just disjointed and just a bit under whelming. There was very little tension compared to when I think of Suranne in Doctor Foster I still get a little shiver for the way that drew you in completely and held you. The only highlight here was the cliffhanger of episode 5 in the torpedo tunnel. The Beeb just doesn't seem to be able to make good dramas anymore...I certainly wouldn't be rushing to see a second series.

Everyone just chill - Vigil is perfectly fine!

[peter-92788 · 9/10 · 2 September 2021]

• it's just a story, and a good effort from everyone involved - thank you.

The production does well, the cliches are all in place (as has been pointed out...), and the death rate is climbing nicely. Two stories for the price of one, some politics, some tech, .... - all great fun.

Looking forward to next Sunday, #3.

Presumably will be tricky to have a Vigil 2.0!

Cheers.

Good & bad

[garypearse-26976 · 7/10 · 30 August 2021]

Firstly this show has the premise to be really good on the levels of suspense we got from LOD. HOWEVER a big plot hole is having a civilian police officer investigating a crime that takes place on board a royal navy submarine. This would never happen. All cases like this are investigated by the military police. Aside from this the sub plot hole of having political subcontexts takes away from the foundation of it being about the navy.

Overall worth watching but wish these companies could lay off the political subcontexts and focus on the story they are trying to create.

Unable to suspend disbelief

[Adasusy1 · 4/10 · 8 October 2021]

I gave up towards the end of episode 2. The 2 billion pound submarine, as conveniently described by one of the crew, populated by a legion of officers and crew members failed between them to spot an oil tanker a mere football pitch's length away. Fortuitously the captain saved the day when he adverted disaster at the very last moment spotting the humungous tanker via the good old periscope (who needs state of the art radar anyway!) Pity really. 4 stars for good cast and sets.