Have You Been Watching...? The Rig (2023)

 

Have You Been Watching…? The Rig

I got terribly excited when I first heard of Amazon Prime’s supernatural thriller The Rig. A “Base Under Siege” story set on board an oil rig, where something in the water is a-stirring. The 6 part series has a stellar cast, including Game Of Thrones’ Iain Glen and Owen Teale, Line of Duty’s Martin Compston, Scottish actor Mark Bonnar from BBC's Paradox (and sci-fi fans might know him from many Big Finish productions), The Full Monty’s Mark Addy and Shitt’s Creek’s Emily Hampshire. The series comes from the pen of Scottish writer Daniel MacPherson, and is an original series, not based on any of his published works.

The entire 6 part saga dropped on Amazon Prime on 6^th January 2023. Writing about this will be difficult without divulging spoilers, so BE WARNED!

The crew of the Kinloch Bravo are awaiting transport back to land to see their loved ones when “something” occurs. Transport isn’t coming and a strange cloud formation begins to roll in, enveloping the rig. A series of strange occurrences begin to take place, loyalties and friendships are tested, and the crew begin to wonder if what’s happening on board is truly supernatural or more of this earth. People die and the whole thing has a feeling of the old Dr Who serial “Fury From The Deep”.

The series is great to look at with great sets, great CGI and effects work and top notch performances all around. However, I found many things that take place are so ridiculous that it took me out of the drama. The series is also possibly too long. I found Episode 4 a slog to watch and came across as padding to get the series up to it’s 6 episode quota. It’s also a frustrating watch. These sensible and hard working people make the most bizarre decisions and you can almost see the “this is to progress the plot” signs throughout. For instance, what Owen Teale’s slimy character Hutton gets up to is not only staggeringly unbelievable, but impossible that repercussions don’t take place. Rather than the plot fluidly taking place, there’s a lot of suspension of disbelief required. I generally don’t mind that, sometimes a good sci-fi yarns requires it, but when it clunks along and makes you want to bang their heads together, it’s not a fun ride.

The last two episodes make a good job of tying the mysteries together, but sadly, there’s a few scenes that just don’t make sense and clearly just set the whole thing up for a second series. Although I wonder where a second series of this plot can go, it does end on a sequence I didn’t think would come and took me pleasantly by surprise.

That being said, the whole series isn’t awful, it’s just not great either. I do want to see where the series will take the viewer, and I thoroughly enjoyed some of the characters, despite my frustrations at their actions. Maybe being stuck on an oil rig while all this is going on does affect your decision making skills!

It’s worth tuning in for, but I would probably advise against binge-watching it and spread it out, otherwise you too may find yourself getting frustrated!

Series count: 1

Episode count: 6

Availability: all 6 episodes available to stream on Amazon Prime.