Critic Reviews

Questions such as, "Isn’t this a bit silly?" and, "What was writer David Macpherson on when he picked up his pen?" do linger in the wings, but the direction is terrific, the editing superb and the performances top notch.

This is middling in the grand scheme, but if you enjoy this particular genre (iso-horror?) there are plenty of worse ways to spend your time. The casting is excellent (superficially, the plethora of Scottish accents alone are worth the price of admission for me), John Strickland (Line of Duty, Big Love) does exactly what he needs to do as director, and there’s real suspense and real agony within the narrative.

Macpherson doesn't reinvent the sci-horror wheel, save for a bit of eco-horror philosophizing here and there. But the show is effective in a nuts-and-bolts thriller way, with a cast of game Scotsmen (and a few others) grimly solving problems ranging from mutinies to prophecies to apocalyptic mechanical disasters.

While there isn’t a ton of character development as The Rig starts, the acting is excellent, and it makes the tension that’s building on the Kinloch Bravo feel palpable.

This is still highly watchable fare with some strong performances and atmosphere, it's just not quite as propulsive or as innovative as one might have hoped. Maybe the final three will come along and put those criticisms to rest. If not, and this remains comparable to a somewhat overstretched Doctor Who story writ large - well, there's nothing wrong with that either.

It’s a modern take on an old narrative form, and if there’s nothing as earthshaking dramatically speaking as whatever the Big Bad is managing as it comes for our crew, the need to know what’s what – including Glen’s Secret Sorrow and the role Mark Addy, who has yet to turn up unless I’ve failed to spot him under all the safety gear, is going to play – and the faith that it won’t all descend into a Lost-style debacle will keep you going until the end.

If it had been squashed into 90 minutes, The Rig might work. But spread over nearly six hours, it feels slack and at times, a bit naff.

There are times when The Rig plays as a seabound Alien. Other times, the eco/oil theme, while worthy (see also State of Happiness and the latest series of Borgen), skews the script, with clunky asides about sustainable fishing, the Earth’s crust and an extinction event (“The great dying”).

In the second half of the season, though, the series veers off course a little. It feels as though the story could have been nicely paced into four episodes rather than six. It once again becomes a little tonally confusing, almost as though it's struggling to find its identity despite being two seasons deep.

This is peak post-peak TV, which means it’s ambitious, overwrought and yet somehow full of great actors. It then takes those great actors (almost all of whom seem to have been seconded from Game of Thrones – Iain Glen, Mark Addy, Owen Teale…) and has them spout total cod-scientific gobbledygook.