Vigil (UK 2023)

Vigil Series One was broadcast on BBC1 in 2021 and dealt with a nuclear submarine operation investigated by a Scottish police detective because of potential crimes committed in UK territorial waters and onshore. Series Two which completed six episodes just before Christmas deals with an RAF operation involving an arms manufacturer and a foreign military service. Again a criminal act on UK soil is investigated by DCI Amy Silva (Suranne Jones) and her DI Kirsten Longacre (who is Silva’s partner in a domestic sense as well and is pregnant with the couple’s baby). I wrote about the first series after three episodes but this time I have watched all six one hour episodes which were broadcast Sunday-Tuesday at 9pm over two weeks. (Don’t worry there are no major spoilers here.) The second serial has broadly the same genre mix as Series One, but there are differences in the emphasis of each section and perhaps there is a new set of elements to add.

I should add that one of my problems with both serials has been distinguishing the dialogue clearly. For broadcast episodes I employed the subtitles but for the last two episodes I had to do without. This might have affected my ability to follow all the plot details and there are a lot of them. I did find this narrative more difficult to follow, forgetting who was who among the many characters at times. By the end of the last episode I felt that I had understood the narrative line but there were details I wasn’t clear about.

The ‘inciting incident’ here is a weapon system display for the military in ‘Wudyan’, a fictitious country in the ‘Middle East’. The display of drones in a co-ordinated attack on military targets literally misfires with a number of British military personnel killed on the Scottish training ground. DCI Jones is again the investigating officer for Police Scotland. Because the deaths are linked to the presence of personnel from Wudyan, there is a question of possible ‘terrorist’ activity. Also, because part of the weapons display involved RAF personnel located on a base in Wudyan who were taking part by satellite links, it is necessary for DCI Jones to go out there. Meanwhile DI Longacre has control of the case on the ground in Scotland. Once again MI5 becomes involved. This separation of Amy and Kirsten, in which they can only really communicate by ‘phone for most of the time, puts a strain on the relationship, especially since Kirsten is quite a way into her pregnancy. She refuses to back down from taking action, of course. The strength of the narrative is the conflicting pressures on DCI Silva from the RAF, MI5, the arms manufacturer, the Wudyan military and aspects of Wudyan ‘opposition’ groups that she encounters – there are more active ‘players’ here than in Series 1. The performances are strong with Dougray Scott and Romola Garai playing an Air Vice-Marshal and a Squadron Leader respectively. Gary Lewis plays DCI Silva’s very supportive boss.

My overall feeling about these kinds of narratives, where they involve made-up territories in the ‘Middle East’, is that they don’t have the power of more ‘realist’ narratives. I understand why ‘Wudyan’ has been invented in this case, but it is a flaw for me. (The Wudyan scenes were shot mainly in Morocco, which has been the ‘go to’ location for Hollywood since the Star Wars films – Jordan might have given the serial a different feel?) I think therefore that I invested more in the personal stories of the two female leads (and some of the other individual characters). I was struck this time by how good Rose Leslie is as DI Longacre. I’m not sure why but she made more impact on me this time round. But Suranne Jones is the star and she didn’t disappoint me in any way. There are two incidents in which she is faced with a desperate situation and she acts with athleticism and skill so effectively that I wondered if she was auditioning to be a future James Bond. On this evidence she would be very good.

This second serial doesn’t appear to have created the same kind of audience excitement or press coverage as the first which was the most watched drama on UK TV in 2021. Is this simply a part of the general decline of drama audiences or an example of the second in a series attracting less attention? A third possibility is that this perhaps doesn’t have the same suspense thrills found in a narrative set in a submarine? Researching the audience reactions I came across a Telegraph review that claims the series is ‘merely subpar’. The review goes on to suggest that the series is ’embarrassing’ for the BBC at this time. I think this is an attempt by the right-wing paper to push the ‘BBC is left-wing’ line over the Israel-Gaza crisis because the serial becomes involved in representing both the Wudyan military and its opposition (which clearly sees British foreign policy as the cause of much of Wudyan’s problems). Actually, that’s one of the strengths of the serial and arguably one of the familiar elements of these kinds of narratives, which often expose rogue elements in the British services which do indeed cause the problems (although the lingering sense of British colonialist/imperialist attitudes towards the Middle East also contribute). The serial is briefly introduced in the BBC Media Pack by Tom Edge, ‘creator, writer and executive producer’ of Vigil. The question then arises as to how the narrative is resolved and I found the last sequence of the serial interesting, though I am a little sceptical of how the UK establishment might act in a case like this.

Vigil is produced for the BBC by World Productions and sold round the world. It will be interesting to see what overseas audiences make of the serial and whether there will be a Vigil 3. Much will depend on Suranne Jones and whether she wants to continue. Jones is a powerful figure in UK television and has said she is planning to work more behind the camera as a producer. Earlier this year she was both a star and a producer of Maryland for ITV, creating quite an impact. Vigil 2 is available on BBC iPlayer in the UK and may well be available on streamers in other territories.