Amazon Prime Video release Series 2 of their strange sci-fi environmental thriller The Rig
“It’s never too late to do the right thing”
Amazon Prime Video released the first series of The Rig in January 2023 and as a bit of a Scottish thriller, I was a big fan of its early episodes but left a little nonplussed by its genre-hopping into sci-fi strangeness by the end. Two years down the line, a second series has now emerged and once again, it starts off really strongly, only to peter off as it tries to find a workable ending.
We rejoin the crew of the Kinloch Bravo as they’re airlifted from danger from the tsunami of the Series 1 finale but evil corporation Pictor isn’t returning them home, they’re shipping them off to a secret base in the Arctic. There, they’re battling with grief at lost colleagues, fear of what has become of their loved ones post-wave and confusion at what the mysterious Ancestor has to do with all of it.
Confined in a new base and unsure of what’s going on, the first few episodes here nail the brief, putting multiple characters in serious peril, amping up the tension and with the arrival of Alice Krige’s head honcho for Pictor, a clearer sense of multinational manipulation as they seek to control the public narrative about what is going on, particularly since the UK has been so devastated.
The struggles, both intellectual and physical, between the two sides here are tautly realised and in the case of Ross Anderson and Mark Addy in particular, sickeningly tense. Even the introduction of a story strand in a Scottish rescue centre, Rochenda Sandall’s Cat desperately hunting for her wife, keeps the dark atmosphere flowing well, particularly as it points to how well (or not) we are prepared for climate catastrophe.
Once again though, as the nature of the Ancestor comes to fore, writer/creator David Macpherson grapples uneasily with weaving this directly into the storytelling. Martin Compston’s Fulmer feels strangely unregarded in this point and Emily Hampshire’s Rose is uneasily slotted in with a horrible move late on. Iain Glen’s Magnus feels a bit underutilised too but I did like the burgeoning relationships emerging between Johannes Roaldsen Fürst’s new scientist Askel and Molly Vevers’ Heather and also Abraham Popoola’s Easter and Nikhil Parmar’s Harish.
