You're not claustrophobic, are you?

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's Top 50 TV Shows of 2021.  

#23 : Vigil

How to create one of the most nail-biting televisual experiences of the year? Take a tense, twisty procedural plot, get Suranne Jones to fire on all cylinders as a trauma-racked action hero badass, then cram her into a ready-made environment for a claustrophobic whodunnit: a nuclear sub.

I'd seen this on Gogglebox a few times and thought it looked OK - although because Gogglebox did its usual trick of giving away major plot points in its excerpts (which is always quite annoying) I never bothered watching it.  But by the time this came around I had, of course, completely forgotten all said plot points so was happy to revisit.

So - errr, why did it take me so long to actually finish watching it?  I'm not entirely sure to be honest - but part of me decided it would be good to watch on the train, but then my wife did her back in which meant there were no train trips, so let's blame her, shall we?

And yeah, this is pretty much you'd expect it to be - Line Of Duty on a sub (and there's nothing wrong with that).  As with LoD, some of the plot strands are utterly ridiculous and some of the potential villains are bit pantomimey, but I can live with that.  It manages to run with several plot strands reasonably effectively, feeding out details as required.  A submarine is a good setting for a police procedural given the enclosed setting and the various different chains of command involved (which are often completely ignored, of course).  I’d also say that I hope all submarine crews are a million times better at their jobs than this one (because otherwise there are a LOAD of sunk submarines out there).

Suranne Jones is always good value and delivers here, although I’m not convinced she needed to be given the claustrophobia - she had quite enough to deal with without that as well.  Rose Leslie is also growing into being another indicator of quality and she delivers here as expected.  There are lots more recognisable faces in here - Gary Lewis and Stephen Dillane pop by looking good in a uniform and Paterson Joseph does a good job as the sub captain.  Unfortunately I still think of him as Alan Johnson from Peep Show but the guy started out as a Shakespearean actor, so he really deserves better from me.  I didn’t recognise Shaun Evans as the coxswain (I don't watch Endeavour) but he does a good job in exalted company.  It was also nice to see Martin Compston getting to use his naive accent (and not having to say "mate" every other sentence).

It's mostly well filmed (although some of the underwater effects are a bit shonky) and the sets are very believable as an actual submarine - for someone who has no idea what an actual submarine looks like, at least.  All in all, I enjoyed this and, if you suspect you'll like this, then you probably will - it has good acting and is well written with multiple twists and a suitable conclusion.

#22 - Essential telly imho
#24 - In which I don't follow my own rules