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Byte-Sized Overview
Vigil is a high-pressure British thriller that begins with a suspicious death aboard HMS Vigil, a Royal Navy nuclear submarine, and then expands into a bigger conspiracy involving the Navy, the police and British security services. DCI Amy Silva, played with wonderfully contained steel by Suranne Jones, is helicoptered onto the submarine to investigate, while her former partner Kirsten Longacre, played by Rose Leslie, works the same case on land. It is a drama built on claustrophobia, institutional secrecy and the awkward fact that every authority figure involved seems to have a reason to be evasive.
What makes the series worth a look is the combination of a genuinely unusual setting and a central double act with real emotional charge. The submarine world gives the first series its pressure-cooker tension, while the later run broadens the scope without losing the sense that everyone is only one withheld fact away from disaster. It is sleek, serious and frequently tense, but it is also just smart enough to know that a good scowl can be as useful as a gunfight.
Transmission Details
- Show Title: Vigil
- Years: 2021 to present
- Created By: Tom Edge
- Network: BBC One
- Seasons: 2 released, 3 confirmed
- Episodes: 12 released
- Starring: Suranne Jones, Rose Leslie, Shaun Evans, Paterson Joseph, Martin Compston, Gary Lewis
- Supporting Cast: Anjli Mohindra, Connor Swindells, Adam James, Stephen Dillane, Romola Garai, Dougray Scott, Amir El-Masry
- Genres: Crime drama, thriller, mystery, action
- Status: Returning series
Signal Strength
Vigil works best when it trusts its setting. The submarine sequences are excellent television grammar, all narrow corridors, clipped exchanges and the ever-present suggestion that the next alarm may be the wrong sort of surprise. The production design makes the boat feel both technical and spiritual, a place where routine is sacred until it suddenly is not. Director James Strong and the creative team lean hard into the vessel as a sealed environment, which keeps even ordinary conversations taut. You can feel the air getting thinner.
The other great strength is Suranne Jones, who plays Amy Silva as a woman with a high tolerance for nonsense and a low tolerance for being patronised. She makes the role feel lived-in rather than merely efficient. Rose Leslie gives Kirsten Longacre a different kind of force, less outwardly severe but no less determined, and the two actors make the relationship between the women feel like history rather than a convenient plot device. The best scenes are often not the loudest ones, but the moments where they are forced to work around old hurt and present danger at the same time.
Where the show loses momentum is in its tendency to keep widening the conspiracy when the emotional core is already strong enough to carry the piece. Occasionally the plot becomes so intent on proving how many institutions are compromised that it risks turning nuance into a paperwork exercise. A few supporting arcs are sketched more neatly than they are paid off, and the second series in particular sometimes prefers procedural escalation over the kind of sharply observed character friction that made the opening episode so addictive. Still, even at its most plotty, it remains sturdier than most thrillers that mistake speed for suspense.
Vibe Check
This is a tense, adult thriller with a distinctly British flavour, which means people spend a lot of time staring at screens, giving bad news in measured tones and trying to remain professional while everything around them becomes operationally awful. The pace is deliberate rather than frantic, especially at the start, but the show knows how to build dread. It is not action-first television, though it does deliver the occasional burst of chaos when containment fails. Its real intensity comes from pressure, secrecy and the sense that every answer creates a fresh problem.
If you enjoy military procedurals, political conspiracy dramas or any series where competence is constantly being undermined by institutional rot, this will likely hit the spot. If you want a breezier mystery, or if you bristle at dramas that make good people spend entire episodes speaking in coded half-truths, it may feel a bit airless. The appeal is less “whodunnit” than “how far does this go before the whole system fractures?” That, thankfully, is a question the show knows how to make entertaining.
Spoiler Mode
The first series begins with a death aboard HMS Vigil that is quickly treated as suspicious, and Amy Silva is sent on board to investigate. What initially looks like a contained case soon expands into something far murkier, with the submarine itself becoming a trap. Amy has to work through the hostility of the crew, the awkward supervision of Commander Neil Newsome and the obstructive presence of Officer Elliot Glover, while Kirsten Longacre digs into the same mystery on land. The two investigations slowly reveal that the death is tied to a wider conspiracy involving the submarine’s mission, compromised loyalties and the British state’s appetite for concealment.
As the series progresses, the central dynamic shifts from “can Amy solve the case?” to “can Amy and Kirsten survive the people who would rather the truth stayed buried?” Their professional collaboration becomes more emotionally charged as their past relationship keeps resurfacing under pressure. By the end of the first run, the conspiracy has been exposed far beyond the confines of the boat, and the drama has made its real point: this is not just about one dead crew member, but about the way institutions protect themselves when faced with the possibility of public scandal and strategic embarrassment.
The second series moves the action into the world of the British air force and drone warfare, which broadens the scale without losing the show’s taste for pressure and secrecy. Amy and Kirsten are again pulled into a dangerous investigation, this time involving a killing inside a military system built around remote power and deniable decisions. The new setting gives the series a colder, more technologically mediated feel, and it sharpens the sense that violence does not need to be close-up to be morally filthy. Amy remains the dogged centre of the story, but Kirsten has more room to act as a co-lead rather than just a parallel investigator, and that makes their partnership feel more fully reciprocal.
By the end of the released run, Vigil leaves its central relationship altered rather than neatly resolved. The cases are solved, but the cost of solving them is never trivial. The show’s continuing interest is less in tidy closure than in what happens when two women repeatedly choose truth over comfort, even when that truth lands them in yet another professionally disastrous situation. Which, to be fair, is also how the BBC keeps getting a third series out of the arrangement.
Character Shout-Outs
Amy Silva, played by Suranne Jones: Amy is the engine of the series, a detective chief inspector whose intelligence and endurance are matched by an almost alarming willingness to walk into hostile spaces and ask hard questions. Jones plays her with clipped control, but never turns her into a machine. The little signs of strain matter, because they remind us that Amy is holding herself together by force of will and career instinct. She is exactly the kind of character who can make a sealed submarine feel even smaller just by entering the room.
Kirsten Longacre, played by Rose Leslie: Kirsten gives the series its emotional counterweight. She is competent, direct and often more socially flexible than Amy, but the role is not written as a mere softer echo. Leslie gives her a wary intelligence that makes her believable as both investigator and ex-partner, and she handles the character’s frustration with bureaucracy especially well. The show becomes richer whenever Kirsten is allowed to push back rather than simply react.
Elliot Glover, played by Shaun Evans: Elliot is one of the first series’ more memorable pressure points, a man whose authority and habits on the submarine make him seem helpful until he absolutely does not. Evans plays him with a closed, watchful quality that keeps the character opaque without flattening him into a cartoon villain. He helps the series maintain its sense that the boat is a hierarchy first and a workplace second.
Neil Newsome, played by Paterson Joseph: Newsome has the difficult job of embodying command authority without becoming a stock military stiff, and Joseph gives him just enough human ambiguity to make that work. He is clipped, wary and never quite relaxed, which is exactly what the role needs. He anchors the series’ institutional side, reminding us that a captain can be both responsible and compromised at the same time.
Craig Burke, played by Martin Compston: Burke is crucial to the first series because he helps widen the investigation from one death to a broader web of loyalties and danger. Compston brings a familiar intensity, but uses it more quietly here than in some of his more explosive roles. That restraint helps the series keep its mystery grounded in behaviour rather than melodrama.
DSU Colin Robertson, played by Gary Lewis: Robertson is the kind of character who looks like he has been sent in to keep things orderly and instead becomes evidence that disorder is the real system. Lewis gives him a dry, seasoned authority that makes every scene with him feel like there is another layer of institutional compromise just off camera. He is one of the show’s better reminders that official competence and actual clarity are not the same thing.
Deep Dive Highlights
Vigil was created by Tom Edge, with the first series written by Edge alongside Ed Macdonald and Chandni Lakhani. That combination matters, because the writing is at its best when it blends genre confidence with character work. It is not trying to reinvent the thriller wheel; it is trying to make the wheel feel as though it has been bolted to a nuclear submarine and told to behave itself. The result is sturdy and intelligent, with enough procedural detail to feel credible and enough narrative momentum to keep the whole thing from drifting off into mere atmosphere.
The setting is central to the show’s identity. The first series was made and set in Scotland, and the contrast between the open, damp landscape and the oppressive internal world of the submarine gives the drama a strong visual pulse. The production takes full advantage of that, using the boat as both physical environment and metaphor. Everything is confined, monitored and potentially compromised. Even the quiet scenes feel engineered.
The second series makes a deliberate shift from sea to air, taking the story into the British air force and the world of drone warfare. That is a smart creative move because it prevents the series from repeating itself too literally. It also lets the drama explore distance as a moral problem. In the submarine story, threat is claustrophobic and immediate. In the drone story, danger is displaced and sanitised, which is arguably even creepier. The show understands that modern warfare often looks neat right up until it does not.
Behind the camera, the series also benefits from a production that clearly values scale without showing off for its own sake. The action is controlled rather than flashy, and the direction tends to prioritise geography and tension over empty spectacle. That discipline is one of the reasons the show holds together. It knows that a good thriller does not need to shout every minute; sometimes it only needs to close a hatch and let the silence do the work.
Legacy & Impact
Vigil arrived as a major BBC drama success and quickly established itself as one of the broadcaster’s standout launches of the decade. It drew large consolidated audiences, which is no small achievement for a show that spends much of its time in metal corridors discussing security clearances and chain of command. That popularity helped justify the move to a second series and, in turn, a third, making it one of the BBC’s more durable recent genre titles.
Its impact is less about changing television overnight and more about proving there is still appetite for tightly constructed British thrillers led by strong female investigators. It also helped cement Suranne Jones and Rose Leslie as a formidable pairing, which is useful if what you enjoy most in drama is watching two very competent women navigate a world built by men who were obviously not consulted enough. The series has earned attention for its gripping premise, its use of Scottish locations and its willingness to pivot into new military settings without abandoning its core relationship.
Skull Face’s Take
Vigil is for viewers who like their thrillers tense, polished and politically suspicious, with a lead performance that can carry a lot of procedural baggage without breaking a sweat. If you enjoy institutional conspiracies, military settings and character-driven investigations, it is well worth your time. If you prefer brisker pacing, lighter banter or mysteries that do not keep adding new layers of secrecy like an overenthusiastic filing system, you may find it a touch steely. Still, when it is on form, it is one of the more satisfying British dramas of its type.
Skull Face's Score
Skull Face's independent editorial rating
A tense, well-acted British thriller with real atmosphere and a strong central pairing.
What works
- Excellent submarine and military tension
- Suranne Jones and Rose Leslie anchor the drama
- Credible production design and a sharp sense of place
What may not
- Occasionally overcomplicates its conspiracy
- Some supporting threads are thinner than the main mystery
- The pace can feel deliberately slow for some viewers
Ready to watch?
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Check the retailer for current availability and the correct edition. Prime Video may require a subscription, rental or purchase.