For various reasons I'm writing this initially on a notepad rather than an actual PC, so I don't know exactly if this will be the same size as a normal review. This year, me and my best friend decided to start a tradition of suggesting one show a year for the other to watch, before the year ends. My request was the criminally underrated Resident Evil TV series, while her suggestion was British sci-fi horror drama series The Rig (created by David MacPherson). Knowing nothing about it, at first I assumed it was some kind of pure drama, but it wasn't long before I was surprised to see elements of horror creeping in at the sides.
This takes place on an oil rig off the coast of Scotland, whose crew are meant to be ending their rotation. Before they are able to leave however, a strange mist appears, which coincides with the rig losing all communication with the outside world. It is soon realised that the mist carries with it something dangerous, with people who are exposed to it becoming infected with some sort of pathogen. This infection not only heals any wounds the person infected might have, but also seems to meld their consciousness with something ancient that rests beneath the waves.
Having known nothing about this, when horror elements begin to sprout up, I fully expected this to basically be The Mist but set on an oil platform. This didn't turn out to be the case, as that mist is only really a first act problem. The horror wasn't as pronounced as I had hoped, but that didn't change my enjoyment of this series. The Rig consists of just six episodes, each roughly fifty minutes long. The cast of characters were a varied bunch, despite there being a large number of crew on the rig, it is an elevated section of this crew that get brought to the forefront, with the others just existing as background characters. Chief of these is Iain Glen (Game of Thrones TV series, Resident Evil: Extinction) as Magnus, the boss of the rig, and a fatherly figure to his crew. His second in command, the somewhat ruthless Rose (Emily Hampshire - Mother!) shares some secrets about the future of the rig with Magnus. As well as the rigs doctor, other notable characters included the antagonistic Hutton (Owen Teale - A Discovery of Witches, Game of Thrones TV series), played to perfection by Teale, and Baz (Calvin Demba), one of the younger crew members who is the first to be infected, and who spends the season working for the unknown thing beneath the rig.
The meat of the season has the management trying to work out what is happening, while the infected work on their own potentially disruptive plan of their own. There are some exciting curveballs, such as a nearby oil rig exploding, and a brief phone connection to the mainland suggesting things may be worse than they appear.
The rig exterior is represented as CG, but mainly it looked decent. Later in the season when outside is featured more, it becomes noticeable that it is primarily CG in a lot of occasions, but it was never distracting in the slightest. Same goes for the use of green screen on occasion. The sets look authentic and are full of details, and special effects, such as floating spores looked good throughout.
This was a show for the modern world we live in, eco-horror whose location of an oil rig was relevant, with this being a 'what if...' scenario of if one day Earth fought back against all the damage humans have done to it. Despite not going as far into horror as I had hoped, I loved the show. It did the dangerous thing of setting up a second season, but thankfully for once this has already been confirmed to be happening. It will be interesting to see where this heads next. The Rig can currently be streamed on Amazon Prime Video.
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