Recent watches:
The North Water:Based on Ian McGuire's novel of the same name, this follows Patrick Sumner (Jack O'Connell), a disgraced ex-army surgeon joins a whaling boat captained by Arthur Brownlee (Stephen Graham), a tough and principled man. When the cabin boy complains of stomach pains and an examination reveals he has been anally raped, Sumner wants to find the culprit but Brownlee isn't so interested, even when suspicion leads to harpooner Henry Drax (Colin Farrell), a saloon and brutish man.
It's an excellent five-part miniseries which I watched on iPlayer, definitely not the most enjoyable TV series I'll see this year, though certainly one of the best.
The Cleaner: Created and written by Greg Davies and based on a German comedy series, The Cleaner is a six part comedy show about the work of Paul 'Wicky' Wickstead, a crime scene cleaner who has pride in his work and an interesting way of interacting with those touched with the violent deaths he is responsible for cleaning up.
Each of the six episodes is a self-contained story about one death with the title reflecting the person with whom Wicky spends most of his time with (The Widow, The Writer, The Neighbour, The Aristocrat, The Influencer, The One).
They are very well written and performed – I think my favourites were The Widow with Helena Bonham Carter, The Writer with David Mitchell, and The Aristocrat, with Stephanie Cole and Donald Sumpter. They are also on iPlayer and very watchable.
Vigil: Vigil is about the Trident submarine of the same name, one of the vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines in the U.K.'s nuclear deterrent, and what happens when Craig Burke, a sonar operator, dies and his replacement is flown out to the submarine along with DCI Amy Silva.
The captain and other senior officers don't believe there is anything suspicious about Burke's death but Silva, who is processing a historical trauma which makes her three-day stay in such an enclosed environment a serious mental and physical challenge, believes he was murdered. Meanwhile, there is a parallel investigation on the mainland looking into Burke's movements and acquaintances, including how his movements involved a CND-style peace camp near the military base and a senior Scottish politician opposed to renewing Trident, the future of which will be decided in an upcoming parliamentary vote.
I thought this was a compelling series and very well written and directed. The performances by the entire cast, including Suranne Jones, Rose Leslie, Martin Compston, Daniel Portman, Shaun Evans, Stephen Dillane, and Paterson Joseph. (It was funny to see Lesley, Portman, and Dillane in the same series – though not in the same scenes – after watching them in Game of Thrones.)
I loved the 'whodunnit' aspect of the story and, now I have seen it and know what happened to Burke and why, will rewatch the series to see what clues (if any) I missed in the first few episodes. This is also on iPlayer, one of their UHD programmes and, because of the numerous dark scenes, was glad of the extra contrast and clarity.
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