Vigil (BBC 1)
Rating: 
Where do you keep a dead body on a nuclear submarine? It's a dilemma, and one that has never occurred before to the flustered Captain Newsome on Vigil (BBC1).
HMS Vigil is the ultimate weapon of war, designed to stay at sea for years on end, even in the event of a world-ending holocaust.
You'd think the naval boffins would remember to include cold storage.
But when stroppy sailor Craig Burke (Martin Compston) is found dead from an apparent heroin overdose in his bunk, the skipper (Paterson Joseph) isn't sure where to put him.
There's a freezer in the galley, but it's full of food. Anyway, the sub's head chef is in tears over Burke's demise. Perhaps she's worried her cooking is to blame.
In the end, Newsome opts to park his crewman in an empty torpedo tube. It's cold, it's sealed, it's ideal. The only puzzle is why, when the captain is later trying to cover up the death, he doesn't just press the 'fire' button and jettison the body. Torpedoes away!
Suranne Jones as DCI Amy Silva being dropped to the nuclear submarine from a helicopter in episode one of BBC's Vigil
It's all completely crackers, and that's before Glasgow detective DCI Amy Silva (Suranne Jones) is winched down from a helicopter to board the sub at sea.
Silva is an intriguing and complex character – claustrophobic, terrified of water, a depressive who usually copes by going for long runs, she is a terrible candidate for an investigation in a tin can half a mile below the waves.
She has been despatched because apparently this is standard Royal Navy procedure when someone expires on a patrolling nuclear sub – you stick the corpse in a missile launcher and summon a copper from dry land. From the start, Vigil expected us to suspend our disbelief from about the height of a Sea King rescue copter.
The six-part serial, which continues tonight, opened aboard a trawler in the Irish Sea, where the crew were casting their net after spotting a couple of encouraging blips on the underwater radar.
'Nice little shoal under us,' chuckled the chief trawlerman. His monitor must have been playing up, because those shadows on the screen were submarines – Vigil and the enemy boat stalking it.
Martin Compston as stroppy sailor Craig Burke, who is found dead in the first episode
Christopher Stevens: Silva (played by Suranne Jones, pictured) is an intriguing and complex character – claustrophobic, terrified of water, a depressive who usually copes by going for long runs, she is a terrible candidate for an investigation in a tin can half a mile below the waves
One snagged the nets and dragged the trawler down. Everyone involved with the scene did their best –
