The Rig

[Fambo Number Mive]

Anyone else watching this? Whole series on Amazon Prime today. Good acting but mainly watching because I'm fascinated by oil rigs. I wonder, if there is some kind of nuclear war or far right takeover, whether oil rigs will be places some of the survivors try to get to.

Has anyone ever worked on an oil rig? Was the rec room as loud as the one in ep1?

[Malcy]

Seems like's been in production for bloody ages but going to watch it over the weekend. Good cast.

[idunnosomename]

I wonder if they're allowed to show this on oil rigs

[Dex Sawash]

Is @MoonDust  in it?

[privatefriend]

Scotch Mist anyone?

"it's a very strange fog that makes people want to take cocaine and live in Aberdeen, nobody can make sense of it"

[Des Wigwam]

Just started this today. Up to ep 3 I think. It's OK bits of excitment. Am probably making the mistake of doing something alongside and half watching. I like the bits of pop-geology that are in it. I imagine the resolution will be disappointing.

Am also quite fascinated by oil rigs. I worked for the Danish oil company for a while but never got a chance to go out on a rig. I did get to watch various people doing their cold water survival training in the harbour a few times. The cheery man opposite me would always say "if it gets to that stage you're dead anyway". I liked when they did the starfish formation to float as a group - was like watching incredibly shit synchronised swimming.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Being out in the middle of the ocean on a metal platform must be shit scary, I suppose most oil rig workers try not to think about it too much. I think there's a really good mix of characters in this show.

[Des Wigwam]

I think they just have confidence in the engineering and the support systems. Probably like being on a tanker. I think it's quite an unpleasant trip out to the rigs in the helicopter though. That would shit me up more.

Just remembered my ex-brother-in-law-in-law was a long time rigger. He did the classic thing of retiring and his marriage immediately breaking down because he was home all the time. His alcoholism didn't help either. The other ones I knew at work were fairly normal. One guy did used to absolutely cane it the week before - and right up to - going out on his rotation. But then he also used to wear his overalls almost exclusively while onshore - so perhaps not that representative.

[hamfist]

Can't believe they cast Diana Rigg

[Malcy]

Woke up early and decided to binge it. Kept falling asleep during ep 3. No reflection on the episode though. One thing about ep 3 (I Think) that annoyed me.

Spoiler alert

"The flame has gone out, everyone inside"!

5 mins later. "Pure legend Compston is going to shoot it with a flare so everyone gather to watch"...

[close]

Have 2 left. Just feel there's a lot of filler but like it nonetheless.

[Malcy]

Can't believe they cast Diana Rigg

It was a Stirling choice if you ask me.

[holyzombiejesus]

Man, this is bilge. Baddy in her tight white blouse, all the men and women mixing with their flirty banter, and the citv visual effects.

[Malcy]

Yeah, I've no idea what the fuck this was about.

[holyzombiejesus]

Chibnall Who levels of dross

[jobotic]

This is such awful cobblers but now I'm on episode four I need to watch the rest.

The crap this scientist comes out when she's not floating about and the others go "yeah I see".

Did it survive the extinctions or did it....cause them?

Dunno mate, pressure's up again.

No it's too risky.

Yeah the other things we did when you said it was too risky we're too risky.

Can I just say "cunt"?


Meanwhile a load of other people are getting sausage and chips in the canteen.

[EOLAN]

Up to episode four too. I feel someothers are like me. Would have almost just preferred a six part series about a regular life on the rig without the supernatural stuff. Maybe the odf standard incident thrown in.
But the whole sci-fi element just bores and much preferred the mechanics and group dynamics.

[Fambo Number Mive]

I agree entirely. Have stopped watching after episode 3. Would love to see a standard drama about life on an oil rig or even a crime drama on an oil rig.

[atavist]

This is such awful cobblers but now I'm on episode four I need to watch the rest.

The crap this scientist comes out when she's not floating about and the others go "yeah I see".

Did it survive the extinctions or did it....cause them?

Dunno mate, pressure's up again.

No it's too risky.

Yeah the other things we did when you said it was too risky we're too risky.

Can I just say "cunt"?


Meanwhile a load of other people are getting sausage and chips in the canteen.

Horribly accurate.

I watched the last two episodes with all the enthusiasm of a goose being force-fed grain until its liver was about 20 x normal size, but instead of delicious foie gras, all I produced was vaguely dissatisfied anger.

In summary: it was fucking shit.

[Fambo Number Mive]

It's a shame, because the characters themselves are really interesting.

[jobotic]

I agree entirely. Have stopped watching after episode 3. Would love to see a standard drama about life on an oil rig or even a crime drama on an oil rig.

We had a crime drama on a submarine and that was shite.

[Butchers Blind]

It was kind of passable up to ep3 then it just fell apart under its own half thought out logic.
Don't make another series even though its left it open ended.

[WhoMe]

Owen Teale was fun as a complete nutjob, I thought. His character was humming with suppressed rage at all times. The premise, once it became clear, was really cool. There was never a chance to really flesh it out unfortunately. It would need multiple series to pay off. After a couple of episodes this really started to fall apart under its own weight.

Some of the CGI was so bad man. The external shots of the rig and the underwater earthquake scenes... at least with real models your brain might know it's fake but it still looks cool. I'd prefer that to whatever this was. Lastly, Martin Compston is shite.

Overall a bit of a waste of time - 4/10. 

[studpuppet]

Good acting but mainly watching because I'm fascinated by oil rigs.

You need to read Sea State by Tabitha Lasley.

In her mid-30s and sprung out of a terrible relationship, Tabitha Lasley quit her job at a women's magazine, left London and put her savings into a six-month lease on a flat in a dodgy neighbourhood in Aberdeen – she was going to make good on a long-deferred idea for a book about oil rigs and the men who work on them. Why oil rigs? 'I wanted to see what men are like, with no women around'.

SEA STATE is on the one hand a portrait of an overlooked industry, and a fascinating subculture in its own right: 'offshore' is a way of life for generations of British workers, primarily working class men. Offshore is also a potent metaphor for a lot of things we might rather keep at bay – class, masculinity, the North-South divide, the transactional nature of desire, the terrible slipperiness of the ladder that can lead us towards (or away from) real security, just out of reach.

And SEA STATE is, too, the story of a journalist whose distance from her subject becomes perilously thin. In Aberdeen, Tabitha takes pills and dances with a forgotten kind of abandon – reliving her Merseyside youth, when the music was good and the boys were bad. Twenty years on, there is Caden: a married rig worker who spends three weeks on and three weeks off. Alone and increasingly precarious, she dives in deep. The relationship, reckless and explosive, lays them both bare.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Owen Teale was fun as a complete nutjob, I thought. His character was humming with suppressed rage at all times. The premise, once it became clear, was really cool. There was never a chance to really flesh it out unfortunately. It would need multiple series to pay off. After a couple of episodes this really started to fall apart under its own weight.

Some of the CGI was so bad man. The external shots of the rig and the underwater earthquake scenes... at least with real models your brain might know it's fake but it still looks cool. I'd prefer that to whatever this was. Lastly, Martin Compston is shite.

Overall a bit of a waste of time - 4/10. 

I have to be honest, I did not realise it was CGI and thought it was actually filmed on an oil rig.

[Fambo Number Mive]

We had a crime drama on a submarine and that was shite.

I think submarines are less interesting than oil rigs. To me they are just another ship transporting itself around whereas there is something fascinating about being above the waves working on an oil rig.

I will check out that Sea State book, thanks for the recommendation @studpuppet

[Des Wigwam]

I agree entirely. Have stopped watching after episode 3. Would love to see a standard drama about life on an oil rig or even a crime drama on an oil rig.

Yea like most I got to S3 then really zoned out and had it on in the background. No idea what happened or why and nor did I care by the end.

There was a drama about riggers back in the early 90s. It had Ricky Tomlinson in it I think - unfortunately I think it was what their lives were like when they were on shore leave - and I pretty much know what it's like living on land.

There's a crime one on an oil rig. It's got the very intimidating Scottish man who plays intimidating Scottish men in it (he was the dad of Gloria in It's a Sin - will look him up). That's not bad. Bit too long but better than this and not supernatural. I shall go and find the name of it.

Edit:
Roughnecks was the BBC drama.
Rig 45 is the newer one. Gary Lewis is the actor's name - I won't remember that but you'll recognise him. It's Swedish but in English and on Walter Presents (All4). Like a sitcom the oil rig traps them so is in the background. Personally I'd like to see a drama where half of most episodes is someone changing a gasket or tapping pipes with a spanner.

[studpuppet]

There's a crime one on an oil rig. It's got the very intimidating Scottish man who plays intimidating Scottish men in it.

[Des Wigwam]

It's strange - I remember it as a lot more low key than that.

[monkfromhavana]

So it's basically a shit North Sea Hijack (of Ffoulkes if you're a Yankee).

[holyzombiejesus]

It's a shame, because the characters themselves are really interesting.

Not sure if you're being sarcastic.