The North Water

This is a superb BBC production.

We need more Victorian dirty deeds done dirt cheap.

Tom Courtenay went from "The Loneliness of the long distance Runner " 1962 to this and he still has it ! A great actor and 59 years of greatness.

Colin Farrell is a beyond evil and brilliant, and our morally greyed area main lead , Jack OConnell is exceptional too.

Great sets, great editing, great atmosphere MORE please.

The North Water - based on a book by academic and author Ian McGuire - is a dark and fairly uncompromising quest into the dark heart of humanity aboard a doomed whaling ship in the arctic wastes. A flawless cast (with a mesmerically beastly Colin Farrell), beautiful location shooting in Svalbard (and some of the furthest North for television) and the esoteric soundscapes of Tim Hecker make this a seriously riveting watch. The pace can sometimes slow to a crawl and the heady themes may get a little muddled along the way, but the whole is atmospheric and intoxicating. Seriously good TV - one of the highlights of the year for me.

A subject that I don't think has had such a high production value put towards it, that being whaling. Even tho its only one of many themes appear in this story, I look forward to how they depict it.

They didn't hold back on the Sealing parts, so I expect a brutal and accurate depiction of what whalers did back then, how dangerous it was and depicting the types of people that gravitated towards it. Tho my ancestors where a whaling family in the 1800's early 1900's, So it could be a family type of business also back then. And they hired aboriginals for most of the help and paid them proper (Australian).

But back to the amazing pilot.

If the cast alone doesn't get your interested. Just give it a go for the first 15 mins. If you don't like the tone of the series which is very obvious from the get go. Then don't bother watching further and voting it down.

I'll be surprised if my rating changes from a 9, it anything it could be a 10/10 by the end. Stephen Graham and. Jack O'Connell are big draws for me. Graham is a seasoned actor and one of the best from the UK currently who is heavily under appreciated. And O'Connell I've really enjoyed in most of his films and he pushes what genres and types of projects he takes on. A proper actor which is not common and like Graham I think is underappreciated but he's been on the scene less time. Hopefully they both get their due sometime soon with big films but not anything disney related. Marvel, star wars etc.. Please no.

I did not mean to add this random extra bit about the actors and it being so long.. so im just going to finish up here. Just watch the show.

Well acted, great story. Very gritty.

Stephen Graham, brilliant as always.

One reviewer said they couldn't see anything on screen. Sounds like they need a new TV. They also said they couldn't understand the actors accents. It's set in Hull in 1859. How do you expect them to speak? With a plum in their mouths.

Didnt expect to find this gem!, if you're bored like me and stumbled on this review, take a chance. It has good acting, great landscape scenes and a believable story. I bet this one is going to end up with at least an 8.00 out of 10 score-wise.

Just raw 1800's whaling at its finest.