Vigil season 2's problem isn't just the missing submarine
The first season of Vigil left claustrophobics at the door. Beyond the submarine hatch were intensely cramped scenes, squeezing between tiny bunks and slithering through narrow corridors in the airtight, sunless steel tube.
The submarine setting proved crucial to the unfolding whodunnit, in part because when the show first arrived in August 2021, the memory of being stuck in a confined space was still uncomfortably fresh and relatable in our minds, but also because it provided the thing all the best murder mysteries have: an isolated site none of the suspects can escape from.
Now Vigil is back for a second season, without the nuclear sub and its sunlight-deprived recruits, instead dropping us under the piercing rays of the fictional Middle Eastern country Wudyan with a threat from the skies.
The "Continuous at Sea Deterrent" is replaced with drones this time around and where we once had Martin Compston's Petty Officer Burke in the first body bag, a weapons showcase gone frighteningly wrong leaves several military personnel dead. The Ministry of Defence personally requests one DCI Silva (Suranne Jones) to come in and crack the case of how these newfangled drones so catastrophically 'malfunctioned'.
It was always going to be tricky to bring a show named after its sub back for a second season without that sub, and its rather convenient murder-mystery setting. But what makes Vigil season two less solidly entertaining than its first season isn't just that the saga beneath the waves has been dredged up to sea level, it's that the terra firma we're now on feels far more well-trodden.
Britain’s arms dealing and its standing in the Middle East is the backdrop to this season, as well as the development of remote-controlled drone technology, which we're told is going to overhaul "the way we fight". Oh, joy. All of this provides Vigil a means to continue its tradition of dark politicking, skulduggery and secrets.
The first episode of the show's six parts begins with the military presentation of the drone weapons to a group of Wudyan authorities. It's a maudlin affair, even before any of the murders have been committed.
This is our entry into the grim business of arms sales to foreign, albeit fictional, powers whose human rights record is hinted to be questionable at best, but who the Brits are bending over backwards to strike a deal with.
But while the meaty conspiracy at the centre of the first season shone a spotlight on internal divisions within the security services, against the backdrop of the nuclear deterrent question, the shift to the Middle East doesn't quite have the same intrigue. Instead, it lessens its grip on that interesting question of how we can be at cross-purposes with ourselves, for something which feels far more ripped from the headlines.
This may all just be the inevitable result of a show returning for a second season when it doesn't necessarily need one, and then having to hold up to what was a superb pressure-cooker thriller on its first outing.
Against the backdrop of these fraught international affairs, Vigil still never loses sight of the human drama between Jones and Rose Leslie, playing her pregnant girlfriend DI Kirsten Longacre – both of whom are still on terrific form.
This is not to say the second season of Vigil isn't gripping – it is – but it feels like less of an old-fashioned, entertainment watch than the first. Maybe for season three we can bring the sub back?
Vigil season 2 airs on BBC One and on iPlayer from December 10.
You Might Also Like
