Season 1 |
Season 2 |
|
Episode Guide
Episode 1 -| Review Score – 3/5
Episode 2 -|Review Score – 2.5/5
Episode 3 -|Review Score – 2.5/5
Episode 4 -|Review Score – 2.5/5
Episode 5 -|Review Score – 2.5/5
Episode 6 -|Review Score – 2.5/5
When The Rig dropped on Amazon back in January 2023, we weren’t particularly kind on it. And if anyone has actually read my review, you’ll know that I called it one of the worst shows of the year. Well, season 2 is back and Amazon have gone all out to try and deliver some of that “big budget” promise that never materialized the first time around. With a world-ending threat, a changed location and some new drama, does The Rig improve? Well, it’s better than season 1 at least, so there is that!
The Rig brought together an all-star cast, caught on a remote Scottish oil rig called Kinloch Bravo. Unfortunately, tremors beneath the rig turned out to be the “Ancestor”, a strange alien entity determined to fight back on behalf of mother nature. This primal threat was confirmed by Rose to be a potential extinction threat, the likes of which threatening to destroy the global population unless our plucky band of misfits (or rigfits maybe?) can put a stop to it.
As the season neared its end, Baz sacrificed himself to save the others, who all managed to jet off on helicopters bound for parts unknown, commandeered by Coake, who unfortunately has his own plans for this lot and they end up… on another oil rig.
The ending also saw a massive tsunami wave wipe out the Rig and, as we soon learn early in season 2, most of the eastern seaboard of the UK. Towns are completely wiped out and devastation is rife. Power has been rationed away from coastlines and mostly diverted to casualty camps, and things look bleak. We don’t actually see much of this, unfortunately, but we do hear about it via news reports.
The rest of the crew, fronted by Rose and Magnus, find themselves thrown into the thick of things as we get revelations over the hierarchy of power over at Pictor. We have a new arrival on the Rig, coming in the form of Morgan Lennox. She’s looking to change the company image, determined to shift the attention away from mining fossil fuels to renewable energy, but she’s going to need the crew’s help to make that happen.
Rose instantly believes her, because of course she does, while the rest of the group find themselves torn between their loyalties to comrades and to the mission at hand. It doesn’t take long before we get more exposition, as the truth around the Ancestor and exactly what Pictor are up to comes to the foreground.
This time we’re in the frozen north Arctic, and there are some interesting dilemmas involving the cold and how to deal with this. Episode 4 for example, sees a massive blizzard rock the Rig and force people to work together for the salvation of the mission, but the show just does not seem too interested in more of the environmental hazards, despite, well, basically being centered around an environmental catastrophe.
Instead, The Rig is far more interested in its company VS employees storyline and interpersonal drama. But even then, that drama is explored on the most basic, superficial level. New diving technician Dale Cameron is not happy with Magnus for how they handled a successful mission. But then he’s okay with him, but isn’t particularly happy with Coake for specific reasons I won’t detail here.
Meanwhile, Rose falls out with Fulmer over a power dynamic… until they don’t. Then they fall out over something else, which, again, I won’t reveal in this reveal. And through it all, the characters never really grow or evolve, instead sticking to the same tired archetypes they had in season 1 and never progressing beyond that.
Coake, for example, continues to be Coake and vie for power as the obvious antagonist. It’s all soap-opera level of stuff and if that squabbling and drama took your fancy in season 1, you won’t find many surprises here.
There’s also a separate subplot involving Cat, who finds herself off at a rescue camp, desperate to find Kasey. Unfortunately, she also ends up agreeing to a rather tenuous deal alongside another individual from the Rig, used as pawns within the escalating company war. Pictor is trying to cover up its part to play in the oil rig disaster in season 1 you see, and uses the employees to do just that, in exchange for a handsome payday.
As lies are uncovered and both betrayals and double crosses mount on land and at sea, violence erupts. This really comes to a head in the finale, where a race against time sees those battlelines drawn and a scramble for salvation ensues.
The problems with The Rig mostly fall to character logic and playing hard and fast with science, along with big leaps in logic too. At one point, a character falls into freezing cold water and as he’s pulled up, another ends up freezing their bare hand in a nasty scene. However, as the camera pans across the trio out on the ice, we see no sign of hyperthermia on the fallen, nor do we actually see any signs of them being wet. On that same note, remember the blizzard in episode 4? Well, the group manage to drive fast over ice, twisting and turning, along with doing an emergency brake. On ice.
None of this is helped by the show’s constant desire to tease big set pieces… and then skip ahead to the aftermath. I appreciate this may be a budgetary thing but it is rather annoying to tease big set pieces and not actually see them play out.
An underwater rescue mission for example, is discussed and then we don’t see the actual rescue take place (despite the episode ending on a cliffhanger). Similarly, while the drama in the UK is supposed to be epic and devastating, we get no sign of it as we get a small glimpse from above in a helicopter late at night, and another for a small rescue camp.
This is disappointing because season 2 at least has a bit more visual flair with this follow-up, especially when it comes to the way the Ancestor operates and the high-stakes of the drama at the oil rig. There are a few stand out scenes that look eerily gorgeous, with the Ancestor snaking out fluorescent tendrils underwater, but then similarly we get moments like the blizzard or a bunch of explosions out on the ice that don’t look particularly realistic.
There’s nowhere near enough to justify this as anything but a low budget affair and The Rig, sadly, just looks really cheaply made. While this sounds like picking low hanging fruit, if Amazon can afford to spend 1 billion dollars on The Rings of Power, it’s a shame that none of the money seems to have trickled across to this project.
The interiors are poorly dressed once more, with bare walls and areas that just look half-finished throughout the oil rig. Even the drama in the UK is reserved to small exteriors and the same disappointing set design.
While the first season did feel vey similar to that of The Thing and Nightflyers, this one at least marches to the beat of its own drum and tries to do something more original.
It’s just a shame then that the drum in question is still out of tune and in desperate need of refinement. The show stumbles around with poor dialogue, despite a talented all-star ensemble at the helm, and a painfully basic set of characters with no nuance or depth. Although on that same note, there are a couple of twists here that will catch you off-guard.
To be fair to The Rig, this is nowhere near as bad as season 1, and there is at least some desire here to produce a more original story overall. However, the low-budget design and simplistic storyline (not to mention a rushed ending) means The Rig struggles to break free from the shackles of mediocrity that binds it to the sea bed. Maybe season 3 will be better?
The Rig season 2 releases on Amazon Prime on 2nd January 2025 worldwide!
Many thanks to Amazon for providing episodes ahead of release for this review.
Feel Free To Check Out More Of Our TV Show Reviews Here!
-
Verdict - 4.5/10
4.5/10