Rig 45

A who dunnit on a Norwegian oil rig sounded promising but from the first clunky cgi images it disappoints. The Norwegian bit pretty much goes out of the window early on because.. well it's be too much trouble to read subtitles... so we get Dublin and Scottish accents cause that's foreign enough and every so often some subtitled Norwegian just to remind us it's foreign. It borrows shamelessly from Alien with the crawling through air ducts and steady decimation of the crew by an unknown killer. Ultimately by the time the murder is revealed I considered they were doing me a favour by finishing off the stragglers and bringing the series to an end.

This is a murder mystery set in a confined area - and it largely succeeds (although by no means perfect). It is set in an oil rig, but it could equally have been a submarine, space station... Those complaining about it not being a true to life oil rig are missing the point - it's about the claustrophobic nature of the setting. If realism is sought, watch a documentary.

If you work in oil and gas don't watch Rig 45. It's as if they researched what oil rig work is like by watching movies from the 80's/90's and the movie Alien. If you don't know the industry or can set aside the vast multitude of incorrect operating procedures then it's a pretty good series.

Good acting, great plot. An unexpected event less than half-way in that upends all the usual expectations of an investigative procedural, and works quite well.

The season 1 ending was a bit of a downer, but it did enable a strong start to season 2.

Season 2 started out well, despite having two very unlikable police leads, but after an early death the writing quality diminishes, and the survivors do more and more inexplicable things that throw you out of the show and should have been caught in quality control in whatever the modern version of "the dailies" is.

The scenery in the glory shots - where the day is clear, the water is still, and the rig and ship are sitting there - is spectacular.

A violent reworking of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians (and then there were none). It started to drag. Two episodes too long and the profanities just jarred and became boorish. You would need subtitles after episode 2.