In its first two series, Vigil investigated a mysterious death on a nuclear submarine and took a deep dive into drone warfare. This time around, writer/creator Tom Edge has moved the action to Svalbard in the Arctic Circle (78 degrees north, to be exact,) where politics, greed and natural resources collide.
Though Svalbard is Norwegian territory, its geographically strategic location means that various nations (not least China and Russia) are casting a covetous eye on it. The Russians even have their own enclave here (not sure how that works, frankly) called Baltegrad, which is run by a grumpy bearded man known as Mayor Korotayev (Eric Godon).
In the midst of all this there’s a female Chinese scientist, Shen Jia (Naomi Yang) who we see taking cores samples out of the ice. Evidently she has discovered something very valuable, since the British want to spirit her away from Svalbard. Snag is, so do the Russians, which sets up a fierce little clash between a British special forces squad and a bunch of surly Russkis. But as the Russian commander sardonically points out, nobody will ever know anything about this incident because officially it never happened (pictured below, Shen Jia and British soldiers).
Despite a vast amount of automatic fire being exchanged between the two sides, it seemed nobody got shot… yet later on one of the British soldiers, Daniel Hodge, is found dead with a couple of bullet holes in him. The British want to investigate, but they don’t want this to be a military matter, in case it triggers World War Three. Thus they send for the civilian cops in Glasgow – one of Vigil’s little quirks is that the Westminster government doesn’t seem to exist and everything is run from Scotland – and DI Kirsten Longacre (Rose Leslie) is dispatched to the frozen north.
This means she has to leave behind Amy Silva (Suranne Jones) to whom she has become married since 2023’s second series, as well as their two children, and it also means that this is the first time Ms Longacre is the lead investigator. Needless to say, it’s not long before she’s uncovering various mysterious and sinister facts about the case, not least that it seems the late Mr Hodge was shot while hiding in a wardrobe.
Once again, screenwriter Edge has used the investigative format to probe into some fashionable issues, including climate change (we are alerted to the fact that nearby glaciers are melting), rare-earth metals, net zero and green energy. The natural riches that abound beneath Svalbard could somehow be sufficient to fuel all Britain’s energy needs, apparently.
But despite this semi-factual undertow, Vigil still fails to convince as drama, though the Arctic landscapes under a baleful northern light are astounding. And at least there’s some comic relief in the form of crazed eco-warrior Jason Collier (Killian Coyle), who may or may not have blown up a university professor in his office.
There’s also a rather charming Russian investigator from St Petersburg, Fyodor Zamorin (Tornike Gogrichiani), who seems to share DI Longacre’s suspicions about the Russians. Indeed, one might imagine that the stage was being set for a bit of entente cordiale between Fyodor and Kirsten (pictured above), were her affections not already engaged elsewhere.
Messrs Leslie and Jones deliver solid performances, but the notion that a dangerous and politically-charged situation like this, risking a potential clash between NATO and Mr Putin, would be left largely in the hands of a solitary Scottish copper defies belief. The clandestine security services would surely be all over it, except we wouldn’t know much about it because there’d be a draconian news blackout. In fact, the more Vigil tries to get serious, the more improbable it becomes.
