TV Review – Vigil – How To Ruin A Great Show Right At The End
Spoilers here for this TV series, which was a riveting, tense political drama about a murder investigation on a British nuclear submarine at sea, (and a parallel inquiry waged on land). It all got disappointing in the end though.
Scottish detective Amy Silva (Suranne Jones), is sent by helicopter to board the Vigil sub after a member of the crew is apparently poisoned. She is claustrophobic and understandably afraid of water following being present when her husband drowned in a car crash (from which she and her daughter narrowly escaped).
It becomes apparent that the killings and acts of sabotage on board are aimed at forcing the Vigil to surface, exposing their activity to stalking Russian / Chinese pursuit vessels and causing diplomatic chaos. The problems also risk exposing facts about the poor conditions of British nuclear submarines and crew taking illegal drugs to cope with the stresses of long periods of isolation underwater in radio silence.
All goes well until the closing cliffhanger of the penultimate episode when it all falls to pieces.
The killer releases a biochemical nerve agent that kills another crew member and contaminates a major bow region of the sub. There has to be some crew sent in to help contain the contamination, but Hazmats are stored in the very area they need to inspect. There are only two drysuit diving suits on the entire sub, so the inspectors will have to wear those and they’ll only get about 15 minutes before the suits and helmets kill them with dehydration.
This gets really silly in that Silva insists on wearing one of the suits so she can inspect the crime scene, leaving only Glover (himself a suspect) to seal the contamination and get the Hazmats. Clearly saving the sub and everyone on board would take priority and Silva would be expected to wait for someone on board who is much more qualified to make the dangerous inspection / repair detail.
Job done safely, Silva & Glover are attacked by the killer / spy Doward. He knocks out Glover and goes after Silva, who is collapsing in exhaustion as the predicted dehydration kicks in. Doward saves her by getting her helmet loose right before trying to kill her by putting her in a torpedo tube. Why didn’t he just leave her to suffocate in her diving suit? It would have looked a natural tragedy and he would have been free to further his mission with more damage and mayhem.
The torpedo tube is obviously a Hell for a claustrophobic, especially when Doward fills it with freezing sea water and though the water is released quickly (somehow all the tube activity itself never sets alarms off in the bridge), Silva is left for some time breathing in an airtight tube (too long) before her ingenious use of Morse code saves her.
The final episode wraps up the dangers too quickly. Three quarters of the episode are set after Doward’s capture and arrest. The government not surprisingly covers up the whole affair. Silva is reunited with Kirsten Longacre, (Longy, played by Rose Leslie) her Scottish partner (career and relationship-wise), and the pair go to see Silva’s daughter. There was a build up in a previous episode that showed Longy in conflict with Silva’s homophobic parents (the child’s minders) but that is not referred to when the ladies reunite with the child, who the homophobics were minding.
A great edge of seat tension crank to a real damp squib resolution.
Arthur Chappell
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