REVIEW: The Rig S1
Last Updated on January 20, 2025
The Rig is a British science fiction horror show made for Amazon Prime. I didn’t watch the first season when it came out in 2023 but decided to watch both when season two came out. This will be a discussion of the first season only, though. Fans of grimdark will note The Rig is something that includes its collection of morally ambiguous protagonists, horrific monsters, and a nihilistic situation that would make HP Lovecraft proud.
The premise is a Scottish oil rig is owned by a fictional conglomerate called Pictor. The oil rig has been running for decades and has a dedicated crew that depends on it to provide for their families. It is the holidays, though, and the crew is anxious to get home. There’s also tension in the air due to the rumors spreading around the rig that their jobs will soon be rendered obsolete by the green-friendly upgrades that their corporate liaison, Rose (Emily Hampshire), has been advocating. Rose is dating one of the riggers, Fulmer (Martin Compston), and frequently buts heads with the rig’s manager, Magnus (Ian Glen).
Before anyone can get home for the holidays, though, a mysterious fog settles over the area. This results in them being unable to communicate with the mainland as well as several other strange effects. Some of the crew start acting strange with wild claims and behaviors. This results in paranoia starting to affect the crew with one, Lars (Owen Teale), being especially vocal in his anger. As happens in a lot of horror movies and shows, it becomes a question of who is more dangerous, the monster or the reaction to the monster.
The Rig has a very large cast, consisting of a dozen or more named characters. This is good for a horror show because it allows the cast to be threatened in a lot of ways without knowing who is going to live and who is going to die. It also has the issue of making sure you must pay close attention as there’s five or six plots running simultaneously at any given time. Body count wise, the show is fairly tame. Much of the story is about building on the suspense of what might be going on instead of going full The Thing.
Part of what makes this season work is the isolated location and paranoia work. An oil rig is one of the last places on Earth where you can’t necessarily call for help and are sufficiently isolated for old style horror. The characters are believable enough, if a bit exaggerated, and you care about enough of them that when things go to Hell, you want them to pull ahead. I also appreciated the mystery of what the cause of events is. The show has an environmental theme and talks about global warming, but it is rarely overwhelming (and the working-class cast may be sympathetic but not at the expense of their livelihoods).
Is it a perfect work? No, I’d say that it could have gone much darker and more terrifying. There’s also amusing anecdotes like the fact Ian Glen’s Scottish accent comes off as unbelievable at times despite him being Scottish in real life. There are some good elements, though, and they outweigh the bad. Overall, it’s worth a watch and I enjoyed it as both sci-fi as well as horror.
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