Vigil

Peter McGinn9/10

Oct 17, 2021

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I tried this show mainly because I have liked Suranne Jones in just about everything she has been in since she exploded onto Coronation Street many years ago. That is a tribute to her not just as an actress, but also as someone who seems to always choose good projects. The relationship between her character and DS Longacre, shown almost entirely in flashback memories, comes across now and then as cliched, but not enough to put me off. I like how they use it to allow Longacre to get information to Suranne’s character using a sort of memory code to get past those who are monitoring their messages. I couldn’t help but notice that on a certain website I won’t name, even though this show received the excellent rating it deserves, there were a lot of 1 star ratings in the reviews. Some of them due to the diversity of the cast. Even though most of us have been more than ready to let go of the 50 years of role domination by white, straight men (of which I should note I am all three), there is that low percentage of haters who can’t let go, however reasonable they try to sound in their one- or two-sentence rants. There were also complaints that the extreme sabotage problems that come up would never all happen to a single submarine. But this is fiction and if they want to go the explosive cliffhanger route instead of using a slow burning plot, I am okay with it. One person even said that details were all wrong for the military branch. Sorry, but my liking a show doesn’t depend on them wearing the right hats for their ranks. Anyway, it was entertaining, which is what I look for in, ah, entertainment.